The Lonely Hearts Club
by sienna27
Summary: Universe A: Offshoot of the main Girl story. Bonus Challenge: Dateless in San Francisco. On Valentine's eve, the team is following up on a series of lonely hearts abductions around the country. H/P friendship.
1. Lonely Hearts, Lonely Souls

**Author's Note**: Another flashback to the Girl days. This time we're hitting Valentine's Day, which would be located between chapters 36 and 37 of Falling in Love With a Girl. So after the 'divorce papers served/bathroom make out' bonding, but just before Hotch's marriage was officially dissolved. This has more of a case fic twist than the previous relationship building holiday stories, but I felt like writing a bit of a case fic bonding and I felt like writing a bit of a Valentine's tale, and I had nowhere else to put either concept :) But you'll see I'm going with a fair amount of narrative to move things forward more quickly, so it won't be terribly long, chapter'wise.

* * *

**Bonus Challenge #40 Hearts, Flowers and All That Crap**

Show: Full House

Title Challenge: Dateless in San Francisco

* * *

**Lonely Hearts, Lonely Souls  
**

Hotch's fingertips dug a little further into his thigh at the sound of Emily's breathy, disheartened, sigh from the airplane seat next to him.

It had been her third since they'd arrived at Dulles forty minutes earlier.

And though under normal circumstances in their ever evolving . . . somewhat complicated . . . personal relationship, he would have asked her what was wrong, tonight he had not. And that was because he already had a pretty good idea as to the reason for all of the sighing.

Valentine's Day.

It was tomorrow. And according to what he'd (inadvertently) overheard while the girls were chatting before yesterday morning's briefing, she'd had a date tomorrow night. One that she'd really been looking forward to . . . he was a surgeon apparently, she'd met him on a run at The Mall . . . but it was now a date that she was most _definitely_ not going to be able to keep.

Not given that at the moment it was after ten pm, and the two of them were crammed into Economy Class of a Delta 747, hurdling their way across the country.

They were on their way to San Francisco to assist with a lonely hearts abduction case. It was actually one of THREE lonely hearts abduction cases that had been reported to them in the last seventy-two hours. And though the abductions spanned two different time zones over three different states, Hotch was betting the bank that they were all somehow connected.

Part of it was the victim profile.

They were all single, strikingly pretty, professional women with long red hair in the age range of late 30s to mid-40s. The red hair alone created a victim pool that was much less common just in general, but in this instance, comparing the similarities in the other physical attributes of these women, had tied that knot even tighter.

With their headshots lined up on the white board, it was almost impossible to tell the women apart.

So there was that, but there was also more. According to the searches of their browser and email histories, over the last two months, all of the women in question had responded to at least a half dozen online dating posts. The posts were all on different sites . . . and again, in completely different cities . . . but there had been one common ad in each location. Or common to the extent that whoever had created the ad, had used the same Aristotle quote in each one.

'_Love is composed of a single soul inhabiting two bodies.'_

Garcia had found the line doing an algorithmic search of the women's computer files looking for commonalties. It was a huge break.

Somebody was leaving a psychological fingerprint.

Unfortunately that person hadn't left a cyber fingerprint as well. The accounts of the men (or man) that had created those posts, had all been deactivated and their listed contact information was bogus. And of course the pictures associated with the profiles, had all turned out to be catalog models. Ones with airtight alibies.

They were working a continent away.

Garcia hadn't given up yet though. When they left Quantico, she was still trying to find trace the servers they'd used. The one good thing was that . . . even with the amount of time that had passed since the first abduction . . . no bodies had turned up yet.

That bit of luck was unlikely to last much longer.

Hotch knew that anybody who had gone to this extreme to widen their incredibly particular victim pool, and who was THAT melodramatically obsessed with the idea of a perfect love . . . with a perfect abducted stranger who would immediately, and VIOLENTLY, reject him . . . was likely to be unbalanced to say the least.

He was profiling that all of these women would be executed by midnight tomorrow.

Of course it was their job to make sure that that didn't happen, but they were fighting an uphill battle on that front. There had been three reported abductions in each of the locations. But Hotch was hoping that if the team took a less conventional approach to the case . . . if they expanded their geographic efforts . . . that they could figure out what the hell was going on while there was still a chance to bring at least _some_ of the women home alive. The reality was though, best case scenario, they'd save one woman.

Maybe two.

Things were looking that bleak. Valentine's Day was clearly the stressor . . . a broken heart valentine had been found in each woman's ransacked home . . . and they had a hell of a lot of physical ground to cover, and zero time to cover it.

Which was why he'd split up the team.

He and Emily were on their way to San Francisco, Morgan and Reid to Denver . . . Dave and JJ to Vegas. Garcia was . . . as usual . . . working from base. With so many missing, the profile they had, and so few clues to follow, it was already shaping up to be a terrible case.

A point exacerbated by the fact that it was Valentine's Day.

And Hotch didn't just mean that in the sense that it was likely to be the 'execution day' for this particular group of victims, but also for the fact that it was a holiday for his team too. And he didn't much relish the thought of all six of them being haunted, for eternity, by the image of a stack of dead bodies found on the most romantic day of the year.

But of course they found bodies on holidays all the time.

And on weekends, and birthdays and . . . he bit back a sigh thinking of one particularly bad year . . . anniversaries. Thinking about it that way . . . how so many of life's simple milestones had already been tainted by their work . . . it was somewhat of a miracle that Haley hadn't left him years ago.

But . . . he shook his head slightly . . . his personal life wasn't the topic on point right now. The point was that at this particular moment, he did, genuinely, feel badly about Emily's Valentine's being ruined. Not just by the likely outcome of the case, but the fact that she'd had concrete plans.

She'd deserved to have a good day.

Of course, his conscience reminded him, they _all_ deserved to have a good day. And given that a third of his team was coupled up . . . Reid had, uncharacteristically, had a girlfriend going on a solid two point five weeks now . . . and two others were wolves in wolves in clothing, he was quite sure that Emily wasn't the only one who had had 'special activities' set for tomorrow.

But . . . Hotch's gaze shifted slightly to the woman staring out the little window, and into the darkness . . . the others weren't with him.

She was.

And these last few months in particular, he had developed a very soft spot when it came to Emily Prentiss and her general happiness. During a bad time, she'd been very good to him, better than he deserved. And she had definitely given his otherwise UNBELIEVABLY shitty Christmas and New Year's holidays, some truly bright spots in his memory.

She was . . . his expression softened slightly . . . one of a kind.

And as he saw her biting her lip in the window's reflection, he again wanted to say something. Not that the situation could be helped . . . work was work, and missing women were missing woman . . . but it was still a lousy turn of events. But it wasn't until her hand brushed against his and he felt that warm flesh, that he finally opened his mouth.

"We're gaining three hours on this flight," he reminded her softly, "so we'll have six hours to work before the sun even comes up. If we catch up a break, you could still be home in time for dinner."

Emily turned, her brow wrinkled in confusion.

"Sorry?"

"Your dinner," he repeated quietly, "I overheard you talking to JJ and Garcia. I know you had plans for Valentine's Day. I'm just saying, you might still make them."

It was a lie . . . there was almost zero chance that they'd solve this by morning . . . but he was trying to be kind. To give her something to look forward to.

Emily's lips curved in a faint . . . wistful . . . smile.

"No," she shook her head, "actually I won't. Dinner's already off. I texted him in the car that I had to leave town. You and I both know that this won't be wrapped by morning. But even if we get an UNBELIEVABLY lucky break, with the time zone change going back, there's no way in hell I'd be home for dinner tomorrow night anyway. So," she sighed, "I figured it would be better to let him know now that I wouldn't be around."

Seeing Hotch's eyes had widened in surprise, Emily shrugged.

"This way he can find another date if he still wants to go out." She huffed, "we've only had one coffee the day we met, and then one brunch the following Sunday, so it's not like we're 'exclusive' or anything. I barely know the guy."

Though she had actually been looking forward to getting prettied up and going out for a nice dinner, and maybe some tipsy heavy petting on the couch afterwards . . . second official date was too soon for sex . . . it wasn't the end of the world. It was just one more crappy Valentine's day in a long list of crappy Valentine's days. Really, at this point in her life, she'd be happy to call a moratorium on the whole damn holiday, if it wouldn't sound like some ridiculous, clichéd, feminist rant.

Which was absolutely what it would sound like.

"Oh," Hotch bit his lip, unsure of what else to say. The fact that she might have already cancelled dinner, had not occurred to him. And with the exception of a few EXTREMELY rare occurrences, he and Emily didn't ordinarily discuss the intimacies of their personal lives. Or even the non-intimacies.

They didn't talk about much outside of their work.

But fortunately Emily . . . per usual . . . seemed to read his mind on this point. Her eyes crinkled ever so slightly right before she reached over and patted his arm.

"It's okay. Don't panic. I'm done telling you about my dating life." Then her lip quirked up. "But thanks for caring one way as to whether I had a nice night. And now," she stifled a little yawn with the back of her hand, "I think I'm going to try to catch some sleep before we get there and work straight through the next forty-eight hours."

This case was going to SUCK! There was no doubt about it, there would be a body count. Which was why she'd been staring out the window for the last twenty minutes, watching their altitude go higher and higher, as she tried to focus in on ANY positive leads that they might be able to run down in any of the known abduction cities.

So far her list of prospects was pretty God damn slim.

"Yeah," Hotch nodded and cleared his throat, "yeah, sleep is probably a good idea."

It was coming up on eleven pm, and it had already been a full day. And as he saw Emily stifle another yawn just before she closed her eyes, he knew that the most logical thing would be for him to try to get some rest too.

But he also knew that wasn't going to happen.

It was one thing to sleep on the jet, it was a safe environment. But here . . . his gaze shifted around the cramped cabin of mostly unconscious passengers . . . with all of these strangers, and nobody else around to watch his back, there was no way that he'd ever feel comfortable taking a nap.

Maybe . . . after Emily woke up . . . he'd try to catch a few ZZZs. It was a six hour flight after all. But in the meantime, with nothing really to do . . . he certainly couldn't flip open the case file in a zero privacy environment . . . he decided to try killing some time by watching the inflight movie.

Really . . . he slipped the headphones on his head . . . how bad could it be?

*/*/*/*

Nearly two painful hours of cringe worthy dialogue later, Hotch knew just how bad it could be. It was some terrible romantic comedy starring, God only knew who.

He just knew that neither one of them could act.

And though he knew it had to be wrapping up soon, he couldn't stand to watch another minute. It was just too idiotic. So he jammed his headphones into the little pouch and slumped back into his seat with a sigh.

That's when he heard Emily murmuring at his side.

Or more specifically murmuring, _on_ his side. She'd slumped over into his chest an hour ago.

And then she'd started to snuggle.

Just before her head had dropped onto him, she'd tensed up, mumbling something unintelligible in her sleep. And when he'd looked over he'd seen that her nails were clenching into her palms.

It seemed to be a bad dream.

He was just about to nudge her, when she'd suddenly grabbed his arm and fell against his side . . . and that's when her anxiety seemed to settle. So he figured that her subconscious must have recognized . . . and appreciated . . . his presence beside her, and the safety therein. So though it was a little awkward in principle having one of his agents napping on his shoulder, he left her alone.

It was making her feel better.

After all, they didn't know anyone else on the flight, and it was such a small thing really . . . especially given their recent history, kissing on the mouth in four separate geographic locations . . . that he saw no good reason to wake her up. So he let her cuddle because she needed the rest for the day ahead. And also . . . if he was honest with himself . . . he let her cuddle because she was the one woman left in his life that, even if was just in her sleep, would so brazenly invade his personal space. And he missed having someone in his space.

He missed it every damn day.

And if he might have possibly found himself perhaps accidentally brushing the back of his hand against her wrist, or tipping his head down to take a little whiff of that feminine shampoo, well, that was his business. Fortunately she wasn't awake to call him out on it.

Or at least . . . his eyebrow started to inch up . . . she hadn't been.

"What the . . .?"

He heard the mutter from his side, just before the groggy.

"Why didn't you wake me up when I started mauling you?"

His gaze shifted down and over.

"No harm done." He responded quietly. And she gave him a sleepy smile as she sat up.

"Thanks." Then she raised an expectant eyebrow, and covered a yawn.

"So how much longer?"

"Uh," Hotch looked down at his watch, "we're at least another three plus hours out."

"Christ," She moaned and rolled her neck, "no wonder I feel like I got run over by a bus. The jet is way better for sleeping." Then she pushed herself up slightly to look around the mostly full . . . low lit . . . cabin. Most of their fellow passengers were sleeping, though a few seemed to be on their laptops or watching the in-flight movie.

Either way it was pretty quiet.

Her eyes snapped back over to Hotch's.

"Have they brought around the drinks?"

She was dying of thirst.

"Yeah," he nodded, "just after you fell asleep." Then he reached up to push the button for the flight attendant.

"But I'm sure they have more. And," he pointed to the little pocket in the seat in front of him, "I saved the cookies for you. My bag and yours."

Emily gave him a little smile.

"Thanks," she continued while unclicking her seatbelt, "so I'm just going to run to the bathroom, then you can try to sleep for a bit."

It was pretty well understood that nobody on the team was going to feel comfortable sleeping on a commercial jetliner, or a train, or any other public place, unless there was somebody else there to watch their back. They'd seen far too much of the world to believe that there was any such thing as relative safety.

Somebody was always out to get you.

"Okay," Hotch undid his own belt, "thanks." Then he stood up and moved into the aisle to let her get out.

Just as she went to brush by him, the plane hit a small pocket of turbulence and before she could brace herself, Emily's hip made contact with the seat back and she ricocheted into the aisle.

Feeling a slight moment of panic . . . there was no way to catch herself in such a small space . . . her hands flew out to try to brace herself.

But that's when she felt Hotch's arm slide around the waist.

So rather than ending up in a heap on the floor . . . likely with a sprained wrist . . . she found herself pressed hard against his front.

Not the first time she'd been in that position.

"Thanks for the catch sir," she whispered while shooting him a sheepish grin from a half an inch away, "that first step's a doozy."

"Yeah, yeah," Hotch rolled his eyes slightly at the standard mishaps that only seemed to happen to Miss Emily Prentiss, "maybe we can get a parachute line to hitch to your belt and run along the ceiling."

She chuckled softly.

"You jest," she patted his chest while moving to step around him, "but that's a moneymaker right there."

Then she continued on the down the aisle, though not without taking a second to throw him a grin over her shoulder. His lips started to twitch, but then he saw the flight attendant heading down from the other direction, and he immediately sobered up.

Public persona and all.

So he simply let Emily go off in one direction, and waved the woman down from the other. After he'd requested a diet coke and another bag of cookies if they had one . . . he knew Emily's appetite, and he knew that two tiny bags of cookies weren't going to quench it . . . he sat back down in his seat. But knowing that Emily would be back in a moment, he didn't bother with his belt. And sure enough, after a minute of lightly tapping his fingers on the hand rail, he saw Emily stepping out of the little bathroom.

Again he stood up, this time taking a half a step backwards down the aisle so she'd have room to get by him.

That was the point where he felt something tug on his suit jacket.

He turned, his gaze dropping down to see a small girl, maybe four or five, staring up at him. She had black curls and big blue eyes and was wearing a little pair of blue jeans and a Winnie the Pooh sweater.

She was adorable.

His expression immediately softened as he stooped down to her height.

"Hi there," he whispered while giving her a little smile, "did you need something?"

Her gaze ran up and down his body, pausing at the badge he'd clipped to his waist. Ordinarily he kept his credentials in his pocket but today both he and Emily were wearing them on display so that nobody would panic about them wearing their guns on the plane.

"Are you a policeman?" She asked slowly.

Feeling his lips twitch at her little girl lisp . . . her front tooth was missing . . . Hotch tipped his head to the side.

"Kind of." Then his eyebrow inched up, "do you need a policeman?"

"Is everything okay?"

Hearing Emily's soft voice behind him, Hotch shot her a look over his shoulder.

"Uh, I don't know," then he looked back down at the little girl, "_is_ everything okay, sweetheart?"

Her lower lip came out.

"I lost my dolly."

"Oh," Emily's own lip came out as she leaned down, putting her hand on Hotch's shoulder to steady herself behind him, "and you need a policeman to help you find your dolly?"

The little girl nodded seriously and Emily gave her a soft smile.

"Okay honey, we can do that. Why don't you let _this _policeman," she patted Hotch's shoulder, "go find her, and you and I will go find your mommy."

"Mommy's sleeping." The little turned and pointed a few rows behind her, "see."

Emily straightened up to peer over the seats, and spotted a young woman with curly black hair . . . the same as the little girl's . . . slumped back, eyes shut, with her mouth open and drool running down her chin.

Somebody had taken a Xanax.

"So she is," she murmured her gaze immediately snapping back down to the big blue eyes staring up, "then you can sit here with me for a minute. Right," she patted Hotch's shoulder, "Mr. Policeman?"

"Uh yes," Hotch nodded as he slowly pushed himself back to his feet, "right." Then he looked back down to the littlest member of his citizenry.

"Where did you lose your dolly?"

"I don't know," her eyes began to get shiny right before she sniffled, "I think she runned away."

"Oh, it's okay," Hotch leaned down to gently squeeze her shoulder, "don't cry sweetheart. I'm sure she didn't run away. She's around here somewhere." Then he gently guided her around him and over to Emily, "now you wait here and I'll go look for her."

After Emily had taken the girl's hand, Hotch turned back around and went up to the mother's seat. He tried patting her arm, but she was dead to the world.

Probably Xanax.

So he stooped down and checked under the immediate rows, and then the overhead bins in case somebody had picked it up.

No luck.

Then he bit his lip, trying to picture Jack and the various places he'd left Mr. Bobo over the last couple of years. And with that thought in mind . . . the fact that little children carried their dolls and bears everywhere they went . . . he looked back and forth down the aisle.

There were bathrooms on either end.

And Emily had just come out of the one in the rear cabin. So he started down towards the one in the forward area, heading to first class. And sure enough, he opened the door to find a slightly worse for wear . . . aka well loved . . . baby doll on the tiny counter. A slightly melancholy smile touched his lips as he picked it up. One case solved.

One to go.

And with that thought he mind, he headed back out and down to where he'd left Emily and the little girl. His eyes crinkled.

They were huddled together splitting a snack bag of cookies.

He stooped down next to the end seat and held the doll out in front of them.

"Look who I found in the bathroom."

"Jenny!" The girl exclaimed, dropping the cookie in hand, to grab the doll, "you came BACK!"

"Shhh," Emily half shushed, half chuckled, "you have to talk quiet honey, people are sleeping."

God, she was adorable! And she was also oblivious.

She was clearly lost in the euphoria of a family reunited.

And seeing her eyes fall shut as she squeezed the doll tightly to her chest, Emily felt a spot of warmth in her chest. Then she saw Hotch watching the girl . . . and the faint, sad, smile on his face . . . and had a feeling that he was thinking of less happy reunions on the horizon.

So after he'd helped the girl up and back to her seat, and then come back to sit down in their row, Emily leaned over to whisper in his ear.

"You made that little girl deliriously happy, and you remember that if this case goes bad." Her voice started to thicken, "because sometimes all we have are little victories, but that doesn't make them any less important."

Seeing Hotch's jaw tighten, and knowing that he didn't know how to respond . . . nor did he need to . . . she moved her hand up to cover his. She squeezed his fingers.

"You get some sleep." She cleared her throat, "I'll be here." Then she tried to lighten the mood a bit.

"And if you want to sleep on my chest like I did yours," she continued while pulling her hand back to her lap, "you're going to have to buy me dinner first."

Hearing Hotch's soft chuckle, Emily smiled.

"Good night sir."

"Yeah," Hotch shot her a half a dimple, "thanks Prentiss." And with that he took a breath and closed his eyes.

And with Emily at his side, standing guard, for the first time in weeks, he didn't have nightmares about dead women or abused children. Instead he dreamed of Jack. And of well-loved baby dolls and raggedy teddy bears and little girls laughing as they ran in the sun.

It was a good sleep.

* * *

_A/N 2: One down, maybe three or four to go :) And I do have chapters of two other stories about ready to go up, but daylight savings kind of f'd my energy levels so I couldn't get through everything._


	2. My Bloody Valentine

**Author's Note:** Another story that didn't kickoff as quickly as planned. The concept is still a mini tale, and I have the next chapter started, so I'm hoping to keep moving things along here too.

And please remember, though this is technically kind of a case fic, I don't really write case fics :) I write relationship stories. So, this is my own twisty version of how them working a case together, will go.

And Richmond is a real district station in San Francisco. I didn't do much research on it beyond the fact that it's in a residential area (which is what I wanted) and that it had a picture of the station house so I could kind of visualize the happenings therein :)

* * *

**Other Accounts:**

_****PERSONAL WEBSITE: www . fractured-reality . com**_

_**Twitter: ffsienna27 **__– For story announcements, etc. If the alerts, (or the site), are down, this is a backup to find out what's going on for postings. There's also random randomness that is my brain._

_**Tumblr: sienna27 **__– More randomness._

_**Tumblr: cmfanficprompts **__– Just as the name describes. Jointly run with Kavi Leighanna. _

* * *

**My Bloody Valentine**

Hotch tipped his head back and squinted across the detectives' bullpen, trying to spot Emily through the sea of unfamiliar faces in front of him. Well, they were mostly unfamiliar.

He and Emily had been working with the graveyard shift detectives since the two of them had arrived at the Richmond District station a little after two am. But now it was just before eight in the morning, and the faces of the half dozen SFPD detectives that Hotch had been talking to for the last six hours, were presently as lost to him as Emily's was. And that's because they were in the middle of an . . . extremely chaotic . . . shift change.

Actually, not so much shift _change_, as shift _consolidation_.

The night shift . . . defined here as all of the station's overnight detectives, and half of the patrol officers . . . were staying on duty to help with the search for the missing women. He and Emily had just finished doing their updated profile for the group at large . . . which was a very large group . . . and now there was an elaborate game of musical chairs/bumper cars happening in front of him.

Basically everyone trying to get where they needed to be, and figuring out exactly what they were going to do when they got there.

So it took Hotch a minute of intense scanning before he spotted the profile of his agent. She was on the far side of the space.

And she was just turning into the back hallway.

He immediately began cutting around the crowd.

He was a bit worried about her. She hadn't looked well during the briefing, and he wanted to see what was up. Beyond the obvious, that is.

That the case wasn't really going that well.

So far they'd been having an exhausting . . . and stressful . . . time since they'd landed. Though they did now have a general profile to work against . . . single white male, mid-thirties to mid-forties, likely works in the tech field, never been married . . . there were no new leads in any of the abduction locations.

And that was bad.

And to make things even worse, one of the detectives in Denver . . . against Morgan and Reid's FERVENT pleading to the contrary . . . had decided to go on the local morning show with the full details of the case.

Literally, EVERYTHING that they knew.

Hotch wasn't sure if the guy genuinely thought that public awareness of what was happening was actually going to "help," or if the guy was simply a holdover from the Jon Benet days.

Aka, a complete moron.

Either way, whatever his intentions . . . and whatever his IQ . . . his action had done exactly as the team as anticipated it would . . . royally fucked up the case. He'd caused a panic.

Across half the country.

On Valentine's Day.

The national media had immediately picked up the story . . . as of course had the other two cities directly involved. And now there already at least a half dozen 'death clocks' counting down to midnight. Nine one one calls were coming in from everywhere . . . literally, all over the country . . . and the hotlines were being flooded with useless , time wasting, "tips."

It was a God damn sideshow.

And while Hotch had spent the wee hours wading through the SF hotline write ups, Emily had volunteered to actually cover one of the phones. Her shift had lasted right up until he'd grabbed her for the briefing. That's when he'd noticed she was looking a little pale and rubbing her stomach. He wasn't sure if it was the case bothering her, or if she was actually sick. But either way he wanted to find out what was up before things got busy again. For them, that is. Clearly, the station house itself had plenty to do at the moment. He rolled his eyes at two detectives arguing over one rolling chair.

Like dig out a bunch of picnic benches.

And as Hotch slipped out of the big room, and into the corridor where he'd seen Emily step into a moment before, his ears almost popped with the change in noise level. Though there were still people coming and going . . . mostly carrying their morning coffees as they went, everyone was running on caffeine . . . it was basically quiet but for the squeak of tactical boots on waxed linoleum.

A pleasant reprieve from the din of seconds earlier.

And Hotch was just about to ask one of the male officers if he'd seen Emily . . . men always _noticed_ women like Emily . . . when he caught sight of her himself.

Directly ahead of him, on the left side of the corridor, she was just stepping out of the women's room.

"Hey," he called out softly while continuing down to where she was standing. "You okay?"

Emily winced slightly, her hand coming up to rub her stomach as she looked up.

"Eh," her nose scrunched up, "kind of ick. I think too little sleep, too little food and too much bad coffee. I know that's kind of par for the course with us, but," she made another face, "for some reason today it's really wreaking havoc on my stomach."

It was either the situation, or she was coming down with some bug. But she was leaning towards the no food, no sleep, battery acid directly poured into her gut, thing. But whatever it was, it sucked.

She felt like shit.

Hotch's brow wrinkled slightly as his hand slipped into his pants pocket. He started tapping his index finger against his spare cartridge. Then he tipped his head.

"Come on," he turned, "let's go back to the conference room. There's a couch in there, you can take a nap."

It was a small room . . . the smallest they had actually . . . but it had the requisite white board, a scratched up table, four rickety chairs and a battered leather sofa.

It fit them just right.

"What? No," Emily quickly shook her head while falling in step beside Hotch, "Hotch, don't be silly. I don't need to take a _nap_. I'm not sick, I just feel kind of," she swallowed down the biley taste in her mouth, "yuck. But it's nothing serious. I'll live."

God knew she'd kill for a nap, but she had zero intention of taking one. No matter how she felt, she certainly wasn't going to be pulling anything less than FULL weight on this case.

Especially with just the two of them out in San Francisco alone.

"I'm quite sure that you will _live_, Prentiss," Hotch responded drily, "but you're clearly not _well._ And considering that we have probably at LEAST another twenty hour day ahead of us, it's obviously better for you to get a little extra rest now, while you can. God knows where we'll be this afternoon, hopefully off actually _catching_ the UNSUB, but at the moment, we're here. And we're not going anywhere. So," he pushed open the door to the small room that had been allocated for them, "you," he pushed her into the small space, "go try and fit yourself onto that extremely uncomfortable looking couch. I'm going to take a walk around the building and clear my head."

He was quite serious about Emily needing to get some rest in order to stay frosty for their likely outings later in the day. But seeing her scowling at him from just inside the door . . . though the effect was somewhat ruined by her need to stifle a yawn while she was doing it . . . Hotch threw up his hands in disgust.

"Prentiss, just take the damn nap! It's going to be at least another half hour before things to calm down in the bullpen, so in the meantime we might as well do what we can to recharge our batteries. So, I'm going for a walk," he shot her back a scowl of his own, "and you, LIE DOWN! That's an order!"

Then he gave her another gentle shove back, and yanked the door shut in her face.

A split second later . . . through the modular wall . . . he heard Emily yell back.

"FINE! BUT ONLY BECAUSE IT'S AN ORDER!"

His lips twitched.

So God damn stubborn . . . he turned and started towards the side door . . . she kind of reminded him of himself sometimes.

But he knew that he was right about this. She'd only had a two hour nap over the last thirty six hours. So if she didn't some more sleep, then she was going to have to keep pounding the caffeine. And her stomach sure as hell wasn't going to get any better if she just kept throwing oily, station house, black coffee onto it.

But this way . . . he blinked at the blinding sun as he stepped out onto directly onto the city sidewalk . . . she should hopefully be feeling a little better by the time she woke up. Because the one thing that he'd REALLY like to avoid was her having a 'vomiting' issue later in the day. Like for instance while they were on a raid. That would be a genuine nightmare scenario. Not to mention a safety issue.

And a sanitation one.

But . . . Hotch slipped his sunglasses from his pocket as he started walking down the side street to the main boulevard . . . exhaustion wasn't the only thing working against them on this case. Emily was right about the lack of food too.

That was likely why the coffee was bothering her more than usual.

Generally if they had to fly out at a random hour, they could get a decent snack on the jet. They kept a supply of protein bars, mixed nuts and fruit juice in the little galley. But flying commercial all they'd had were those cookie slivers.

And cookie slivers did not fuel a body for forty-eight hours straight.

It was just lucky that he had a cast iron stomach or he'd probably be in the same that she was in. Still though, they needed to eat. And with that related concern very fresh on his mind . . . that it would be nice to avoid passing out in the lovely city by the bay . . . Hotch started walking to the corner.

He hadn't been lying when he told Emily that he was going to take a walk to clear his head, but he'd also had plans to get something to fill their stomachs.

And . . . he stopped to press the walk signal on the traffic light . . . he could see just the ticket on the other side of the street. He nodded to himself while watching a car roll up to the drive thru window.

Dunkin Donuts dead ahead.

*/*/*/*/*

Emily awoke to the smell of baked goods wafting up her nose.

Her eyes popped open to see Hotch stooped down in front of her, a large waxy white bag in his hand . . . a wry expression on his face.

"I've been trying to wake you up for almost two minutes. I should have known to start by just shoving food in your face."

Emily half yawned, half chuckled.

"Well why didn't you just poke me in the arm?" she asked while pushing herself up and dropping her boots to the hard linoleum.

"I did," Hotch responded drily as he came up to his feet, "I poked you in the arm, I shook your shoulder, and I said your name, approximately," he rolled his eyes, "ELEVEN times. Nothing. Not until I shoved the bag under your nose."

Though he was somewhat amused by her Pavlovian response to the smell of a muffin, he actually did feel somewhat badly about having to wake her up so soon. Clearly if she was THAT deeply asleep, her body needed more rest than he was going to be able to give her. But he'd already given her a solid forty-five minutes.

That was as much time as they could spare.

When he first walked into Dunkin, he ordered himself a small coffee and a plain donut while he scribbled down a few ideas on the tiny emergency notebook he kept in his inside jacket pocket. But once he'd finished with his mini brain storming . . . which had pretty much coincided with the last bite of donut being popped into his mouth . . . he'd gone up to get _back_ into line to order another coffee, a tea, and . . . he turned to dump out the contents of the large waxy bag onto the table . . . a bunch of other crap.

Yeah, he was starving.

And he could tell by the way Emily's eyes lit up when she saw what had fallen out onto the table, that she was starving too.

"Oh," she asked excitedly, "what did you buy?"

Good Christ she was hungry. Yes, her stomach had been pretty junky when she'd lain down, but the nap really had helped. She felt ten times better.

Damn Hotch and his accurate biological predictions.

Hotch sat down and started sliding items around the table.

"Egg and cheese English muffin breakfast sandwich for you," he pushed that over, "and also," he pushed another small waxed, wrapped item over, "assuming we won't have time for another real meal break, a low fat blueberry muffin for later. And lastly," he pulled one of the white Styrofoam cups from the cardboard carrier to his right, "a tea with two sugars and a splash of two percent milk." He shot her a look, "still getting some caffeine, but it's better for your stomach than the coffee."

A soft smile touched Emily's lips.

"You're the best chief ever, you know that, right?"

He really was. Big gigantic, super sweet, softie all wrapped up in a total badass, kill a man with his pinky finger, package.

With dimples.

Hotch stared back for a moment, a pensive look on his face. And then he nodded.

"Yes," his eyes dropped down as he started unwrapping his own sandwich, "yes I do know that."

When Emily started to chuckle, his expression softened slightly.

"So I guess you're feeling better?"

The question was rhetorical, it was obvious that she was feeling better. And it was also obvious from the slightly abashed smile that she gave him in response to the question, that she was feeling a bit silly about fighting him over resting.

"Yeah," Emily nodded, "I'm actually feeling MUCH better," her eyes rolled good naturedly, "thanks for ordering me take a nap."

It was the first time that she'd ever been 'ordered' to take a nap. Though knowing Hotch, it probably wouldn't be the last.

Hotch raised an eyebrow.

"You know I could completely bust your chops right now, but," he picked up his sandwich, "my food is getting cold."

Emily's lips twitched.

"Oh, I have no doubt you'll get back to it later."

Hotch nodded as he brought the sandwich up to his mouth.

"Probably."

And with that he went to bite bit into his bacon, egg and cheese croissant. But then he saw Emily staring down at her own sandwich. There was a faint wrinkle in her brow.

"What's wrong?" He asked, his arm falling back down to rest on the table. But Emily immediately shook her head.

"Oh," she shot him a quick smile, "nothing, I'm fine. Thanks again for getting breakfast."

Hotch's eyebrow inched up.

Though the words she was speaking were genuine, there was still something amiss with the facial expression. And then he noticed her eyeballing the croissant he was holding, and he had it. He sighed.

"I didn't get you bacon and croissant because it's greasier and I didn't know how your stomach would be."

"No," Emily waved her hand dismissively, "Hotch, it's totally fine."

But it wasn't. And he knew that it wasn't . . . she wanted his sandwich. But unfortunately . . . his stomach rumbled . . . he wanted his sandwich too. He'd specifically ORDERED the bacon and croissant one, because he'd WANTED the bacon and croissant one.

And he didn't want to give it up.

But . . . an idea came to him and he dropped his breakfast back down onto a napkin . . . there was a solution that would make them both happy.

He simply dismantled both sandwiches . . . ignoring her, "wait, what?" . . . as he reached over to snatch hers out of her hand . . . and evenly split his serving of bacon onto both. Then he recapped the sandwiches . . . putting her top onto his, and his onto hers . . . and spun one of them back across the table.

"Eat," he ordered.

Though he'd never eaten an English muffin and croissant simultaneously . . . he bit into the Frankensandwich . . . he had a feeling it would be greasy enough to still taste good.

And he was right . . . he bit back a satisfied moan as he started chewing . . . it was delicious.

The fact that he was starving probably didn't hurt either.

Emily's lips twitched, though she said nothing as she again picked up her hybrid meal. Then took a bite, chewed . . . and swallowed. As she reached over to pick up her cup of tea, she whispered.

"It's really good. Thank you."

"Yeah, yeah," Hotch grumbled, "just don't throw up on me later."

Her mouth quivered again.

"'K."

*/*/*/*/*

Nine hours later Emily unexpectedly flashed on her promise to Hotch not to throw up on him that day. At the time she'd made that assurance, she hadn't known the path things would curve down.

That she was going to be staring down into a frilly pink candy box, packed with an assortment of bloodied body parts. Two, pale, delicate fingers . . . manicured nails painted a cheerful coral . . . two freshly removed eyeballs . . . and . . . her teeth ground together . . . a human heart.

Or at least they were pretty sure it was human.

Lab techs were on their way.

And as Emily's hand came up to rub across her mouth, she was thanking God . . . and Hotch . . . that the last thing she'd eaten that day had been a muffin. Because an hour ago the detectives had asked them if they'd wanted to order an early dinner with the rest of them . . . they were getting deli . . . and both she and Hotch had said, thank you, no.

We're fine.

She'd had the muffin . . . he'd had the bagel. So they were pretty much the only ones in the immediate vicinity that weren't slightly green at the moment. More than the half squad room had cold cuts on their desk . . . and the smell emanating from the lacy pink heart was, well . . . Emily's nose wrinkled . . . it smelled like raw meat.

But of course that's what it was.

So at the moment a group of seasoned police detectives were visibly rattled, and faintly nauseous. And the poor woman that had actually opened the candy box . . . a very, VERY unlucky admin who thought her boyfriend had left it for Valentine's Day . . . had to be carried, screaming, from her desk.

Emily could still hear her sobbing from the other side of the door to the captain's office.

Meanwhile Hotch was on the other side of the bullpen with the two lead detectives . . . Eddie Chan and Salvatore Johansen . . . running through the security camera feeds for the station house.

Somebody . . . somehow . . . had just wandered in past fifty police officers while carrying a bloody 'organ donation.'

The balls on this guy were INCREDIBLE.

So with the tech unit on the way, and everybody else off playing eye spy a psychopath, Emily was left alone as official federal, 'eyeball checker.'

A duty both gross, and horrifying . . . and downright heartbreaking. This was a person.

And now she was just pieces.

And while Emily was trying to glean some kind of psychological insight into this little nightmare displayed before her . . . though the brazenness of the drop off itself helped to narrow the profile . . . suddenly the PHYSICAL implications of what she was looking at, bashed her over the head. Her eyes snapped open in shock.

OH JESUS!

"HOTCH!" She started screaming over her shoulder, "HOTCH GET OVER HERE!"

Though Emily knew she was scaring the shit out of the room . . . it had gone silent as a tomb . . . there wasn't anything to be done about that. Because this was bad.

This was SO very bad!

"WHAT?!" Hotch yelled as he came running back from the desk on the other side of the room, "WHAT IS IT PRENTISS?"

"It's the IRIS!" She stepped back, her hand coming up as she pointed down. "It's GREEN! Hotch, this woman had GREEN eyes!"

Hotch froze in his tracks, his heart pounding in his chest as he stared down.

Oh Christ! She was right! There they were, a bright Emerald green! A shade not to be mistaken for any other.

A shade that was not on their list.

None of the women in ANY of the cities had green eyes. They were all blue or brown.

_SO WHO THE HELL WAS THIS!?_

* * *

_A/N 2: So the reverse of the first chapter, lighter to start, case ficy at the end. Full disclosure, I recently watched My Bloody Valentine (1981 version) and that's where I got the image of the heart in the box. But a heart wouldn't really have been a great 'visual' clue, hence the eyeballs :)_

_Next update, Emerald Cities. Maybe Thursday._

_Thanks everyone!_


	3. He Loves Her, He Loves Her Not

**Author's Note**: I am doing my damn level best, to keep all these balls up in the air! So I'm bouncing from one draft to another trying to keep everything moving.

**WARNING:**

Moving more into case fic details here, so perhaps for some people, a few elements of some 'sensitivity'. Though if you're watching CM to start, then, well, just putting it out there as a heads up ;)

And FYI, the movie referenced in here, is sadly, a real movie. Yes, it's a terrible, borderline offensive, title but, you'll see why its use fit for the location. Just wanted it to be clear, I didn't come up with it myself!

And thank you for all of the wonderfully kind comments I've been getting the last week for the last couple postings. You're good people :)

* * *

**He Loves Her, He Loves Her Not**

The eyeball turned out to belong to one Diana Jane Milner.

Her distinctive emerald green eyes had been the key to narrowing down her identify off of the hundreds of women on the regional missing persons lists. The severed fingers . . . and the prints thereon . . . had done the rest. Because it turned out that Diana was a gun owner.

Lucky break there.

Diana was also a thirty-two year old recent divorcee . . . and a recent transplant to the metro area . . . who had just taken a part-time position at the University of California, San Francisco campus. She was a secretary in the Financial Aid department who had been scheduled to start a bachelor's program that fall.

Nursing.

Her sister in North Carolina . . . the one who had reported her missing four days earlier . . . told them that Diana had decided to go back to school, to become a pediatric nurse. That she'd ended a bad marriage to a bad man and had moved west to start a new chapter in her life.

That chapter had ended rather abruptly.

And given her particular physical characteristics . . . green eyes, long brown hair, slightly plump physique . . . unfortunately it didn't seem likely that there was much that Hotch and Emily would be able to do to find her killer. Because running her particulars against the rest of the women on the white board, aside from being single . . . and Diana was actually divorced, while none of the other women had ever been married . . . she didn't appear to have anything at all in common with the rest of the victim pool.

Though the 'body part drop off' had been both gruesome, and brazen, all signs were pointing to her death being simply a . . . Emily bit back a sigh . . . _'routine'_ homicide. A local matter.

Or more specifically, a _transcontinentally_, local matter.

Even as the San Francisco homicide unit was typing up a label for her case file, the officers in her home city . . . Asheville, NC . . . were trying to locate the ex-husband. The bad man that she'd fled two thousand miles to get away from. Apparently he was on a 'business trip.'

Yeah . . . Emily's teeth ground together . . . she was pretty sure she knew what his 'business' had been. Chopping up his ex-wife into little, 'candy heart box size,' pieces.

Fucking asshole.

And unfortunately it had taken them a little over two hours to identify Diana and piece the rest of her story together. And though of course it wasn't 'wasted' time . . . Emily would love to see the ex-husband fried for what he'd done to her . . . the hours they'd spent on Diana's murder, was time that they'd lost on their primary case. The one that they'd known had the giant 'Death Clock' ticking away. They'd been waiting for those hands to slide around just one time too many. And it had finally happened . . . the tick tock stopped.

One body in each city. Dumped one after another. The coordination in that respect was . . . for lack of a less '_adulatory_' word . . . impressive.

The dumpsite in Vegas was an abandoned factory in a shitty part of town. Four members of the Gang Crimes Bureau had stumbled over her purely by accident. They'd had a meth bust go bad and had been on a foot chase after the dealer who had taken a shot at one of their undercover officers. They ended up following the guy through a broken door and into an old metal works factory. They'd found the drug dealer hiding in one of the old offices.

And then they'd found Missy Graham's body hanging down from one of the rafters.

The dripping blood had splashed down onto one of the officer's cheeks. Apparently it was the same cop who'd had the bullet shot at him.

He really wasn't having a good night.

Dave said the murder scene was a complete bloodbath. So much so that he and JJ had had to change their booties twice.

The blood kept soaking through.

After they'd pulled the body down, and the Medical Examiner had finished the cursory review, he'd determined that she'd most definitely been raped . . . violently . . . before being killed onsite. Time of death was approximately three to four hours prior to discovery of her body. And backtracking, that put her murder between three and four pm local time.

Give or take thirty minutes.

Then forty plus minutes after that extremely disturbing case development, Morgan had called in to say that one of their women . . . Sally Rogers . . . had also been dumped.

The scene in Denver couldn't have been more different than the scene in Vegas.

For one thing, their victim was found nicely dressed and groomed, in a public location. Specifically, inside one of the main level bathrooms in the Colorado Convention Center. And also Sally . . . unlike Missy . . . had _not_ been raped, and overall her murder was, well . . . Emily's brow wrinkled . . . kinder.

If there was such a thing as a 'kind' murder.

But if you had to choose between a knockout dose of Xanax and being smothered in your sleep . . . Sally's COD determined back at the morgue . . . versus being raped, stripped naked, hung on a metal hook like a side of beef and stabbed sixty- seven times in your heart and genitals . . . as had happened to poor Missy . . . well, _everybody's_ picking the Xanax.

Though, again, Emily would be happy to see both SOBs . . . just the same as Diana Milner's ex . . . ride the lightning straight to hell. The longer she did this job, the bigger proponent of the death penalty she became. Some days that realization bothered her . . . or at least gave her reason to pause and think about what kind of person she was becoming. One lacking in the power to forgive, or believe in redemption.

If maybe the job was destroying her soul.

But then she'd pick up one of her case files . . . any one at random would do . . . and she'd flip through the autopsy reports, and the crime scene photos . . . their reconstructions of the attack or abduction scenarios. Then she'd close the file with a shake her head. No, she was doing just fine. These weren't crimes worthy of forgiveness, and these weren't people worthy of redemption.

They all deserved to die.

And that's how she got through the day. That's how she was getting through _this_ day.

Focusing on the end game.

Though before they got to the end game here . . . punishment phase . . . they still had a RIDICULOUSLY large suspect pool to wade through. And that wasn't just because the murders were spanning three cities, but more specifically now because the Denver Convention Center . . . Sally's drop site . . . was presently hosting two _thousand_ real estate brokers that had come in from all fifty states.

Morgan and Reid had a LOT of alibis to check.

And that was presuming that any of the brokers had even _been_ involved. And at that point they really weren't placing odds either way. Just because they were profiling somebody (or more likely now, some_bodies_) in the tech industry . . . that proficiency would have been needed to really make the identical online dating snare, work . . . that didn't mean that one or all of those men couldn't have a real estate license as well.

People cross trained all the time.

So while Morgan and Reid had placed the Convention Center itself under lockdown . . . that had gone over like a lead balloon, the mayor was having a fit . . . Garcia had an algorithm running to cross check the names of the convention attendees, against the names of their victims and the victims' families. Maybe one of the brokers, once upon a time, had sold a piece of property to one . . . or all . . . of the women on their list.

It was all about pulling the threads together.

And her and Hotch's thread, their _body_ . . . Emily's attention shifted to the scene outside her window, the city traffic they were racing through, the colorful lights whizzing passed . . . was in Chinatown. That's the neighborhood that Hotch was driving them towards at the moment.

Speeding them towards, really.

He was going about sixty in a forty-five. If not for the fact that there were still three more women out there somewhere . . . hopefully alive and praying to be rescued . . . he might have let up a little on the gas.

After all, it's not like they were the first responders.

But they were hoping that maybe there would be something at the scene . . . some little thing that would mean nothing to the other investigators, but would be their big break . . . that would help them find the other women before they turned up as corpses as well.

Of course it was a slim hope, they could all already be dead. But, even on their best days . . . Emily scrubbed her palm across her forehead . . . slim hope was all they ever had.

/*/*/*/*

It was a little before ten when they pulled up at the crime scene. A crime scene already chaotic with flashing blue lights, and a gathering crowd of locals wanting to see what had happened.

And Hotch and Emily were both already moving fast when they jumped out of the SUV and slammed the doors shut. But then Hotch . . . spotting the Medical Examiner also just arriving, she was getting her bag from the back of the black van . . . gave Emily a little push on the small of her back.

They needed to see the body undisturbed.

So with them then moving double time, they hurried under the yellow tape with a flash of their badges, and ran through the front entrance of the movie house.

_Adult_ movie house.

From the marque Hotch could see that they were playing _"Whoriental Sex Academy 2_."

His jaw tightened.

Then he quickly refocused on getting to the body. Which in this case . . . he followed Emily around a group of scruffy looking patrons having their statements taken . . . was inside the theater itself.

And as Emily slipped by the officer holding the inner door open, Hotch was snapping on his first glove. When they stepped through the doorway, he heard Emily . . . just ahead of him . . . muttering under her breath.

"Disgusting."

Given that the body itself wasn't yet visible . . . and the fact that she would never be so disrespectful about the state of one of their victims . . . Hotch was presuming her reaction was either to the smell of the warm theater . . . which was _quite_ rank, stale sweat and a nauseating mix of bodily fluids . . . or the activity taking place on the fifty foot screen down front.

Words could not do that justice.

And though . . . for profiling purposes . . . it did help to have had the scene exactly preserved for them as the killer had seen it, the film had now served its purpose.

It was time for it to go.

Hotch turned back to the officer behind them.

"Can you please," he gestured to the film, "see about getting that turned off? And we need lights."

Seeing the officer nod as he pulled out his radio, Hotch turned back to Emily.

"All right, in and out Prentiss," he murmured as they began moving down the aisle, both of their flashlights snapping on at once, "let's just see what we have."

Emily nodded back absentmindedly, half of her attention on fixing her glove, half of it on not stepping in anything 'sticky' in the dark.

And 'sticky' in this place . . . her nose wrinkled when her Mag light traced over a visible splatter of semen on a seat back . . . did not refer to spilled drinks. Of course the stereo piping in the sounds of the six way, every which way, orgy wasn't helping her level of 'comfort' either.

This was the kind of place that made you want to take a Silkwood shower.

Complete with the wire brushes.

But soon enough they reached the corpse that had been left by the front row seats. And when they did . . . and their beams flashed over the damage done to that poor woman's body . . . Emily was almost wishing that she could go back up to that disgusting aisle. Because this . . . her jaw clenched at the sight in front of them . . . this was something else.

It was readily apparent from the state of the body dropped on the floor . . . naked, spread eagle, blood and visible tearing on her labia and inner thighs . . . that not only had she been violently raped, but she'd also been tortured before she was killed. Her fingers had clearly been broken, and there were bruises on her wrists and ankles where she'd been tied down. The killer had also left her eyes open and the duct tape over her mouth.

And then there was the hole in her chest.

Her heart had been cut out.

Emily's brow wrinkled as she considered that development . . . _another_ heart taken? Even with the shit that they saw on a regular basis, two hearts removed in the same day . . . by two _different_ UNSUBs . . . would be a somewhat astronomical coincidence.

Even for Valentine's Day.

"Hotch . . ."

She started, but he immediately cut her off.

"Yeah, Prentiss," she saw then that he was already yanking out his phone, "I know."

After he'd snapped a picture of the scene, he emailed it to the rest of the team before conferencing them in to discuss what they'd found. Emily was listening to the men talk with half an ear, while she ran down the murders in her own mind.

Okay . . . she bit her lip . . . four dead women dumped in three different time zones, over the same linear four hour window, at least confirmed one fact for them.

There were at _least_ three killers involved.

There had to be. Because there was no way . . . even if the guys had a personal _jet_ at his disposal . . . that one man could have made a 'fresh kill' . . . each of these murders had taken time . . . and dropped off any of those bodies (in a rush) to get to the next city within an hour to murder and kill the next woman in line.

It was a physical impossibility.

And that was actually really good news. Okay . . . Emily rolled her eyes . . . that wasn't actually _good _news, abstractly speaking, it was of course terrible news, but it was at least encouraging for the case, or really, cases. Because that meant, in reality, each city was dealing with its _own_ Valentine's Day killer.

So now they could work up individual profiles for each UNSUB.

To date, they'd been operating on the idea of either a single offender . . . a guy who REALLY got around . . . or a small group of men who had been working in tandem. But now it had been confirmed that it was definitely a group effort . . . the timing of the body drops told them that . . . and that each UNSUB had left a very unique signature at his individual crime scene. They were all displaying different levels of rage and remorse.

This was stuff that they could use.

Just as Hotch was hanging up with the guys . . . with the promise to catch up in an hour even if nothing else broke . . . the overhead lights snapped on. Emily blinked as she clicked off her mag light and pushed herself back up to her feet.

"We're adding Diana back into our SF victim pool, right?"

"Yeah," Hotch responded with a nod. He was sliding his phone back into his pocket just as his gaze caught on Detective Chan and the M.E. coming through the door at the back of the theater.

"I don't know if you heard me," he continued as his gaze snapped back to hers, "but I told the others to work up a second profile for each of their locations. We'll keep the master profile for cross reference, but I want all of the locations to have a second review like we're in our own bubbles. I want to take a fresh look at everything." Then he gave Emily a pointed look, "most especially Diana Milner's movements five days ago. Even though she wasn't the UNSUB's type, and the ex-husband still seems to be the most likely suspect, we can't ignore the identical organ harvesting."

Christ, they averaged maybe three or four UNSUBs a year that took a heart. So even if it _was_ Valentine's Day, it had become a statistical improbability that Diana's death was unrelated to the bigger case they were working.

Something connected her.

Emily bit her lip.

"Maybe she knew the UNSUB," she proposed.

"_Or_," Hotch countered with another theory, "maybe she saw something. Maybe she saw him stalking, or abducting, one of the other victims. Either way," he put out his arm and started guiding Emily out of the way so the M.E. could get to the body, "if her death is connected, I think she might be the key to breaking the case." He tipped his head.

"At least our case."

There were technical three cases now. And as it related to _their_ case, he and Emily stayed a few minutes longer to listen to the M.E.'s estimates on time and manner of death. The results were "the last sixty minutes, she's still warm," and "homicide by exsanguination, likely the removal of the cardiac organ," respectively.

No great surprises there.

At that point in his career, Hotch had seen more dead bodies than he could now . . . or would ever want to . . . count. So nine times out of ten he could anticipate the words that would be spoken, before the medical examiner or coroner had even opened his or her mouth.

So with a nod of thanks to the doctor, and a polite, "we'll see you back at the station," to Detective Chan, Hotch and Emily took their leave.

As they were moving through the theater lobby again, Hotch took note that most of the twenty or thirty theater patrons were still waiting to be interviewed. A read of their body language . . . plus the fact that about a third of the group were women, prostitutes there with their johns . . . told him it was very unlikely that any of them were the UNSUB.

Still though . . . he bit back a sigh . . . he'd have Garcia run all of their names too.

Never rule out anything or anyone until the case was done.

And he was just about to keep moving, when suddenly he caught sight of one of the men in the crowd made a lewd gesture to Emily. He'd called out a "hey baby" right before he stuck his tongue through his fingers and wriggled it. And seeing Emily's fist clench in anger, Hotch's own temper flared.

He'd had more than enough of women being disrespected and defiled that day.

So even though he really didn't have the time to fuck anybody up, he decided to make some. He put his arm up and told Emily to hold tight for a second. Then he cut over and grabbed the man by the scruff of his shirt and dragged him to the wall.

By the time he was done whispering in his ear, the man was in tears.

Good enough.

So Hotch shoved him back in the general direction of the theater patrons, with a note to Detective Johansen . . . who was overseeing the collection of the witness statements . . . that he wanted him to get a little 'special' attention before he was let go.

Johansen gave him slow nod while giving the man a side eye.

"Got it Agent."

When Hotch walked back over to Emily . . . about a minute after he'd left her . . . he saw her giving him a sad smile.

"Thanks," she murmured.

He just shook his head.

"I didn't do anything," then he scrubbed his hand across his mouth, "I just really can't wait until this case is done."

Some days the misogyny he had to deal with in these cases . . . this _burning_ hatred of women they stumbled over time and again . . . really got to him.

Today was one of those days.

"Yeah," Emily nodded as they began to walk again, "me too."

When they stepped back out into the street, Hotch's paces slowed a bit as he looked over the crowd gathered behind the barricades that had been setup while they were inside.

Not a lot of Caucasian faces . . . not a surprise given the section of town . . . but that was actually good for them. They were definitely profiling Caucasian UNSUBs, so it meant that with fewer of them in the immediate vicinity, it would be easier to review the crowd shots to see if their UNSUB had returned . . . or waited around . . . at the scene of the crime.

He made a mental note to grab the footage as soon as they returned.

After they walked back over and climbed into the Suburban, Hotch paused for a second before putting the key into the ignition. He was thinking about the case to date. What they knew . . . and what they didn't. And the behavior of that man inside.

And most especially he was thinking about how very alone he and Emily were in this city of almost a million people.

They had no backup.

"Prentiss." He said her name softly, while fighting the urge to reach over and touch her arm.

Emily turned, her eyes wide as she looked over at him.

"Yeah?"

He shot her a look.

"We don't know what's happening here, and we don't know how many men are involved, or how open they might really be to further expansion of their victim pool. So from now on, I want you to stay _right_ next to me at all times. We're not separating at all. Even if it's to go somewhere with one of the detectives within the station house, we stay together."

Feeling the little hairs on the back of her neck beginning to rise, Emily stared back at him for a moment.

"Are you getting a bad feeling about somebody in the homicide unit?" She asked worriedly.

Hotch's gaze shifted, taking in the noisy world outside their closed window.

"No, it's not that," he continued softly, "I just don't like this case. There are too many moving parts." Then he looked back at her.

"So we're clear?"

"Yeah," Emily nodded slowly, "we're clear."

"Okay then," he put the key in the ignition, "text the others, give the same instruction."

As she started to type, he turned the ignition . . . then one more thing came to him.

"Oh," he gestured to her phone, "and also add, from here on, everywhere we go, we keep the other locations informed of where we're going, and when we get there."

It would be nice, if God forbid something _did _happen, if it didn't take six hours for anybody to notice one of the teams had gone missing.

Emily nodded slowly as she continued to type with her thumbs.

"Got it."

Given that her texting speed was about on par with Hotch's talking speed, she'd only been about ten three words behind a straight dictation. So even as he was putting the car in gear, she was sliding her phone into her pocket.

Messages sent.

And with that, Hotch swung a tight U-turn and pulled back onto the closed off street.

A few minutes later they were back in city traffic. And they were about five blocks from the Richmond station house when Hotch noticed Emily trying to stifle a yawn. And of course as soon as he saw her do it . . . he did it too.

Shit.

Apparently twenty minutes of down time driving, was going to be the catalyst for 'being awake for almost forty-eight hours straight' catching up with them. But fortunately just then Hotch spotted the Dunkin Donuts from that morning, coming up on their right. He immediately hit his directional.

Necessary detour.

And another fortunate development . . . he turned into the parking lot and headed around to the back . . . they also had a drive thru.

"You want coffee or tea," he asked Emily while rolling down his window.

"Coffee please, and a donut. I don't care what kind," she gave a weary hand wave, "I just want the sugar."

Hotch nodded . . . he was coming from the same place.

So when the woman came on the speaker, he ordered them two large black coffees, and two chocolate donuts with coconut sprinkles. A few minutes later, the woman was passing him the over-sized white paper bag, through the little window.

Hotch in turn passed the bag to Emily. Then he turned back to pay.

As he was putting his wallet back into his pocket, he heard Emily from his side.

"Open."

He turned, about to say, "_what_?" when she (unexpectedly) shoved a piece of chocolate donut into his open mouth. His eyes crinkled as his jaw closed.

"Thanks," he mumbled around the small bite.

She shot him a little smile.

"Gotta keep your strength up." Then she tore off another piece of donut and popped it into her own mouth.

"Okay," she slumped back in the seat as she began to chew, "now, let's go find us some bad guys."

* * *

_A/N 2: Obviously more case fic than relationship here, but the threads are pulling together and I'm thinking, two, maybe three more chapters. I'd like to get up another one this month, but, we'll see how that goes ;)_

_And you know it's funny, as I was writing this one (and outlining what was happening in the other cities) I was thinking it might be kind of fun, when this is TOTALLY done, to write the case from the POV of the other members of the team. You know, a separate story covering the details of what's happening with Reid and Morgan in Denver, and one with JJ and Rossi working their part of the case in Vegas. As 'literary exercises' go, it would be a new one, and I haven't done anything 'new' in a while. So, whenever I do finish this up, if I'm still enamored of the idea, I'll let you all know in case you're interested in playing Rashomon :)_

_And the San Francisco M.E. is actually a woman, Amy P. Hart. That was not creative license on my part. _

_Thanks for reading everybody! _


	4. Where Did You Sleep Last Night?

**Author's Note**: Posting 'spurt' is slowing to a 'sputter' but we're still chugging along.

This chapter, unlike the last one, is heavier on the relationship than the case. And this hotel is not a product of my imagination. It exists as described.

* * *

**Prompt Set #28 (February 2013)**

Author: Jenny Lawson

Title Challenge: Let's Pretend This Never Happened

* * *

_**Thursday Night / Early Friday Morning**_

**Where Did You Sleep Last Night?**

At twelve thirty-five am PST . . . after two plus fruitless hours of running down nowhere leads . . . Hotch got a call from JJ about another body dump. This one was right on the Strip. It was so close to the casinos in fact, that Hotch could hear the noise of the crowds through the speaker phone. And unlike the first woman found in that city, this one . . . Debbie Thompson . . . was clearly meant to be discovered right away.

And they didn't know what that meant.

Because this body was in a completely different state than the first one. The rage that had driven the former murder, wasn't at all apparent in the latter. It was a simple strangulation with a pair of black lace garters. No blood. No rape.

No rage.

So did that mean that it was a different UNSUB? Or did that mean that it was the same UNSUB working a different _angle_?

They had no idea.

Truly.

Though they knew from their extensive experience in these matters, that it was a near impossibility for any killer to come back from the level of violence that they'd observed in the first murder . . . there was nothing in retrospect to say that the first murder couldn't have been _staged_.

That was a possibility.

Because the alternative . . . a second UNSUB actually in Vegas itself . . . would be a totally different ballgame. It was one thing to discover that this lonely hearts "partnership" . . . or however it was defined . . . wasn't just binding UNSUBs from city to city, but actually binding them together within the cities themselves too. And that would be, well . . . Hotch's teeth ground together as he stared at the white board . . . bizarre. And that was an assessment coming from a man who dealt with . . . what most people would consider . . . "bizarre" incidents, every day of his life.

But this case was something else.

And though Hotch was grieved by the death of yet another woman . . . all of these deaths weighed on him . . . he'd been expecting it. Coming into the case, they'd understood that the odds of saving these women had been slim to none.

They'd almost reached none.

But even if the death of Debbie Thompson had been expected, it had still spiked the pressure valve for the bigger case at hand. Because if the UNSUBs held to the previous pattern, then there would be a cascade of bodies dropped.

Vegas . . . to Denver . . . to San Francisco.

Their victim, his and Emily's, would be last.

Beth Herlihy.

So odds were . . . unless the LEOs solved the case . . . they had maybe six to eight hours at the outset for one of them to have a brilliant deductive flash, or for some crucial piece of forensic evidence to break things wide open. Hotch's hopes on all of these fronts were low. Nothing was working in their favor.

Not the least of which was the insane deadline that they were under.

Most cases . . . even if they were working fifteen hour days . . . they at least had the opportunity to get a semi-decent five to six hours of sleep each night. This case, his team had already been up for over forty-eight hours.

Longer really with the time zone changes.

No decent rest, no decent meals . . . a lot of black coffee. And though Hotch knew they that were going to have to take a break soon . . . they'd be useless otherwise . . . it was just the worst possible time for them to step away from the white boards.

They'd be losing the most crucial hours.

So at that moment he was thinking about making another coffee run, when suddenly he took note of the black circles under Emily's eyes, and the chalkiness of her skin. And then there was the near continuous yawning that she was trying to hide from him.

That had been going on for at least a half hour.

But it wasn't just her though. He was also nearing the point of complete exhaustion. Since sometime after eleven, he'd been having notable difficulties keeping track of the victims. He'd actually _mixed up_ the names of the still missing women in Denver and San Francisco. An unheard of slip for him . . . he didn't make mistakes like that.

Ever.

Also . . . his brow wrinkled as he thought back to their last group call . . . Morgan had been stammering a bit on the phone. And Dave said that JJ was about ready to drop.

She'd thrown up her last cup of coffee.

And considering all of those things together, that was when Hotch came to see that he was pushing them all too hard. They'd already lost their window for a quick . . . read, happy . . . resolution on this one. And given the state of his team (and himself) it was becoming clear that the time for them to have taken a break was probably an hour ago. Maybe two.

They were already useless.

At that realization, bitter though it was, he dropped down onto the couch, picked up his phone and dialed back Dave and Morgan. He told them that they were calling it for the night. All locations were to take a solid six hours . . . that was the _minimal_ recuperative time needed for their bodies after being up for two days . . . and then start fresh in the morning. The last two things he told them were to text the location of wherever they ended up crashing, and if something broke locally in the downtime . . . unless it was truly urgent . . . let the others sleep.

After he'd hung up the call, Hotch looked over at Emily staring at him from across their little work table. Her eyes were half shut, and her head was propped up on her elbow.

She was trying to smother another yawn.

His expression softened.

"Come on," he climbed to his feet while tipping his head towards the closed conference room door, "I saw a motel a few blocks away. It didn't look exactly 'high end' but," he walked over to pick up his bag where he'd tucked it in the corner, "we won't be there for long."

At this point . . . rolling up on one am . . . he was almost willing to shack up in a 'by the hour' place.

He was just that God damn tired.

Emily sucked in a breath, and as much energy as she could muster . . . not much . . . before quickly pushing herself to her feet. It was move quickly or simply collapse on the table.

She was hoping to save the collapsing for her rented bed.

"Best idea you've had all night sir," she muttered back.

Then she went over to pick up her own bag from the corner before following Hotch out of the little conference room.

Hotch was planning on telling one of the detectives that they were leaving . . . and where they'd likely be staying . . . when he realized that they'd all disappeared. It had been at least a half an hour since they'd seen anyone.

_They were most likely in the bunk room._

After all, they'd been working the case for two days before they got there and Johansen had mentioned in passing that none of the senior detectives had been home yet. So figuring that they were still around somewhere, Hotch scribbled a note for them that he left on Chan's desk. After that, just for good measure, he left their whereabouts with the desk sergeant as well.

And then they left.

/*/*/*/*

Forty minutes later Hotch found himself pulling up in front of _The Mosser Hotel_. Not where he'd planned to be forty minutes after he'd left the station house.

He'd _planned_ to have been sound asleep by then.

But that first place that he was going to take them to, actually _did_ turn out to have hourly rates. And aside from Emily's . . . and okay, his . . . squeamish reaction to sleeping in a place that mostly catered to prostitutes and drug addicts, there was also the sanitation element.

The place mostly catered to prostitutes and drug addicts.

But the secondary issue . . . and this was definitely the clincher, because at that point his body was about ready to drop and his standards weren't far behind . . . Hotch knew that he really couldn't put a place like _that_ on his FBI travel reimbursement. He could just see the budget review meeting with Strauss.

"_Yes, Agent Prentiss and I did go alone to San Francisco where we spent the night in a low rent 'rooms by the hour' motel that was likely busted by the SFPD Vice squad the week before. What's your question, ma'am?"_

Might as well just start sending out his resumes now.

So with that first option a total no go . . . and nothing else that they could see in the immediate area that didn't also fall within the same 'socioeconomic' window . . . Hotch had Emily do a search on her phone. She came up with three possibles, all within a few miles of where they were.

And they all turned out to be nice (aka non 'bust worthy') hotels, but unfortunately when Emily called to book them rooms, it turned out that they _had_ no rooms. And why did they have no rooms on a random Thursday night? Because it WASN'T a random Thursday night!

It was Valentine's Day.

The most romantic night of the year, in one of the most romantic cities in the country. The night where parents left children with sitters, and went off for one special evening on the town 'away from the kids.'

And those jackasses had taken all of the good rooms.

So once they'd realized their dilemma . . . that all of the decent hotels in their price range were going to be packed . . . Hotch pulled over to the side of the road and the two of them called around until Emily found them a room.

She said the place was called _The Mosser_, and that the woman promised her there were two vacancies left.

But now that they'd arrived though . . . twenty minutes later, they'd just walked up to the counter . . . to his serious dismay, Hotch discovered that there was only _one_ vacancy left.

Shit.

And after receiving this _most_ unfortunate news, he stared at the desk clerk for a second, then he turned to stare at Emily, and then back at the desk clerk again. His jaw twitched.

"Does it at least have two beds?"

"No," the clerk's nose wrinkled, "sorry. Just the one. But," she smiled reassuringly, "it's a big bed."

He bit his lip.

"Do you have any rollaways?"

And again, she wrinkled her nose.

"Ordinarily, yes, but tonight," she shook her head, "no. Sorry, none available. Again," she shrugged, "we're full up."

Hotch tapped his finger on the counter, briefly debating taking the room . . . and then debating what career options he'd have left at his age.

Maybe he could consult.

Then he felt Emily bump his shoulder. So his gaze shifted over and down.

She was half slumped against the counter.

"Just take it," she murmured with an aborted yawn, "if Strauss gives us shit, I'll sign an affidavit or something that I entered the room of my own free will, and that my virtue remained, unsoiled for the entire length of our stay."

Hotch snorted. Then his eyes dropped to the black and white marble floor as he gave the decision another ten seconds of deliberation.

Fuck it. It was either this or Emily took the room, and he slept in the SUV. And with his luck tonight . . . he huffed to himself . . . he'd probably get carjacked. So decision made to make an absolutely horrible decision, Hotch bit back a sigh as he looked over to the woman behind the counter.

His hand was sliding into his pocket.

Then he slapped his badge down on top of the black slate.

"One night. Government rate if you have it, thanks."

/*/*/*/*

Approximately seven and a half minutes after Hotch committed career suicide . . . signing himself into a one bedroom deluxe in a boutique hotel with one of his gorgeous female agents . . . he found himself standing in the middle of their room. His bag dropped to the carpet.

Emily had already dropped down onto the bed . . . she was rubbing her eyes.

"I can't remember the last time I was this tired," she mumbled, "maybe last fall."

Probably that night when Penelope was shot. They'd been up for a day with the case, and then up for a day with the shooting. But at least then . . . she flopped backwards onto the bed, her eyes already starting to close . . . they'd had a little break in between.

This week was like they'd blown all four tires and then kept driving for another ten miles.

It was lucky that she hadn't passed out an hour ago.

And now that they were in the room, and she was on a nice soft bed, Emily could feel her body starting to give up the ghost. Her breathing was evening out, her limbs were settling . . . her eyes had closed.

But then she felt a warm . . . very familiar hand . . . squeeze her fingers.

"Don't fall asleep, Prentiss." Hotch murmured with a tug, "please, not yet."

Christ. If she passed out now . . . and didn't wake up . . . he was going to be carrying her around the room.

And that was going to look SO much worse on the incident report!

Emily's lashes slowly half fluttered open . . . and then completely shut again.

"Hmmm," she murmured with half a yawn. Though she knew Hotch had said something, it hadn't really sunk in. Mostly she was just . . . she sighed . . . drifting away.

And then she was being yanked to her feet.

For a second she blinked in surprise at the change in position. But then she realized that she was leaning against Hotch. His body was warm and solid . . . her eyes started to close again . . . and he still smelled _really_ good even two days into his suit.

He must have put on some cologne earlier.

It seemed like another fine place to take a nap . . . best one yet actually . . . but then he squeezed her hand again.

"I'm sorry," Hotch murmured in Emily's ear, "but you have to wake up Prentiss. You need to change and then we need to _share_ the bed. You can't take the whole thing or I'm going to be sleeping on the floor."

Though it wasn't at all 'routine' or appropriate for him to be touching her this way, this intimately, they did have a bit of a history. Not one that he was looking to repeat . . . a few holiday kisses, and one truly dirty make-out in a bar bathroom . . . but under the circumstances, it was easy to fall into old habits.

It was just difficult to be gruff with her when they were both so very tired, and she was so clearly vulnerable. She was very trusting of him. Which was why . . . in a moment like this . . . that the soft approach worked better.

Or at least that's what he was telling himself.

Emily rubbed her cheek on Hotch's chest, feeling that warm safe feeling she got from being close to him, washing over her.

It was making her feel even sleepier.

But then as she felt his other hand pat her back . . . as he again whispered her name in her ear . . . she forced her eyes open once more.

She was willing her body to respond to mental commands.

It took a second . . . one where he just gently patted her back . . . but finally she nodded and straightened herself up.

"Okay," she nodded slowly as she stepped away, her fingers slipping out of his, "okay, I'm awake." She gave him a sleepy smile.

"Sorry. I guess my brain just had a Pavlovian response to seeing a bed. It shut down."

Hotch's expression softened . . . God, she looked terrible.

"It's okay," he whispered as he reached down to pick up her ready bag, "you just go get changed," he pushed it back into her hands, "and then you can go to sleep."

Then, with his hand on her shoulder, he started walking her towards what he thought was the bathroom. But when he opened the door, there was no bathroom.

Closet.

His brow wrinkled as he looked around the room.

Though he was getting pretty God damn close to passing out himself . . . maybe it _was_ something about seeing the bed . . . he was still pretty sure that he could identify a bathroom when he saw one. But . . . he turned around slowly . . . all evidence to the contrary.

And then he heard Emily from his side.

"It must be in the hall," she muttered with a yawn and roll of her neck, "I just remembered that some of the rooms were supposed to be 'European' style. You know," she looked up at him and blinked.

"Shared bathrooms."

His eyes widened.

"_Shared_?!"

Of all the . . . what jackass decided COMMUNAL bathrooms in a hotel was a good idea?!

Emily gave a weary shrug as she slipped off her suit jacket and dropped it onto the bed.

"It's cultural."

It certainly wasn't her favorite thing in the world, but she'd experienced it a few times traveling in Europe. It was fairly common in the older B&Bs. You got used to it.

Kind of.

"_Cultural_?" Hotch sputtered back, "Prentiss we're in northern _California_! The 'culture' is America! In America we put bathrooms IN the hotel rooms!"

"Well," Emily scowled up at him, surprised at his unexpected change in mood from the sweet Hotch of a few seconds earlier, "what are you yelling at _me_ for? I didn't build the damn place."

Hotch opened his mouth . . . and then closed it again.

What the hell was he doing?

"I'm sorry," he slowly exhaled, "you're right. I don't know why I'm yelling. I guess I'm just tired and not," he huffed, "processing new data well." Then he walked over and opened the door.

He poked his head out to see the door labeled, "Bathroom" about ten steps back down the hall.

When they'd walked by it earlier he'd assumed it was just a public bathroom for the floor. Which . . . he snorted humorlessly to himself . . . apparently that's _exactly_ what it was.

He turned back to see Emily standing there looking up at him. She still had a little crease in her brow. So he gave her a look.

"I _said _I was sorry."

Then he realized that he didn't sound very sorry . . . he sounded like a complete asshole, he was definitely getting a nice dose of 'cranky' with his 'overtired' . . . and so he softened both his expression and his tone.

"I apologize," he whispered, "truly. I was being a jerk when I yelled at you. And I again," he rolled his eyes slightly, "was being a jerk a moment ago when I gave you a snotty apology. So let's just go to bed before you bash me over the head with a lamp," he raised his eyebrow, "okay?

Seeing Emily's mouth quiver slightly . . . just as her brow unfurrowed . . . he tipped his head.

"Good. Now," he put his arm up to guide her out, "you go first, and I'll leave the door open here while you're gone."

For a second Emily was going to ask him why he would leave the door open, but then her sleep deprived brain remembered his earlier instruction.

They weren't to separate.

And of course . . . she stepped out into the hall . . . what was the first thing that had to happen at the hotel? They had to separate.

Good night all round.

Hotch waited while Emily first knocked . . . then checked the communal bathroom. After she poked her head back out to give him a little nod, (presumably that it was empty) she stepped back in and shut the door behind her. He watched it for a moment before he disappeared back inside their room.

_Their_ room. _Their_ bed . . . his and Emily's.

Together.

Christ . . . he shook his head . . . forget about work, there was another consideration here. He was also married man. Not that he actually ever completely _forgot_ that point, but he had to admit, the longer he was separated, the easier it was for that fact to kind of 'drift' to the back of his brain.

And his overtired state it had most definitely kind of drifted.

Then for a . . . very surprising . . . second, he flashed on the specifics of the bar room make-out he and Emily had shared a month earlier. Then he quickly pushed THOSE images back out of his mind.

A not at all a helpful memory at the moment.

And so to keep his brain from going to any other unhelpful locations . . . like how he hadn't slept in a bed with any woman in over seven months . . . he hurriedly went over to unzip his ready bag. Then he stripped out of his suit and boxers. And after slipping on a clean pair of underwear . . . he could shower in the morning . . . he pulled on his flannel pajama pants.

For a second he was going to leave his t-shirt on . . . that was his usual sleepwear . . . but then he remembered it wasn't that day's t-shirt.

It was the one from the day before.

And after a quick sniff of the arms . . . nope, nope, nope . . . he yanked it off and pulled a clean one out from his bag. He was pulling it on when he heard the door squeak.

He spun around to see Emily walking back into the room with her boots under her arm, her bag in one hand and her holstered pistol in the other. It was impossible not to take note of the fact that she was now braless.

A fact accentuated by her tight ribbed tank top.

And their eyes locked for a moment before she gave him a drowsy wink.

"Nice abs."

Then she continued over to the little chair on the other side of the room to put down her things.

Hotch stared after her for a moment . . . though she was no longer paying him any attention at all . . . just closing up her bag and tucking her boots out of the way . . . so he quickly fixed his t-shirt from where it had folded up on his stomach.

After that he dug his shaving kit out of his bag and picked up his gun from where he'd put it down on the mattress.

"Be right back." He called over his shoulder. Then he added with a little scowl.

"Lock the door behind me."

Emily straightened up, turning around to look at Hotch in confusion.

"Why was it that you left the door wide open, but I have to close and lock it? What's the difference?"

For a second Hotch just stared back at Emily . . . he really had no logical explanation for his instruction. So he defaulted to the simplest truth.

"The difference is that I'm me and you're you, and I want you to look the door," he shot her a look, "okay?"

She huffed and then chuckled.

"Okay."

And with that she walked over to wave him out with an amused eye roll. As she closed it in his face, she muttered, "goofball," under her breath.

And then . . . from out in the hall . . . she heard.

"I heard that."

She poked her head back through the crack in the door.

"You were supposed to," she responded with a faint smirk, "otherwise," she winked, "where's the fun?"

Though she was still completely exhausted, of course the act of splashing water on her face to wash up, had perked her up a bit. And as long as she was slightly perked, there was no reason not to push Hotch's buttons.

It was her favorite past time.

And after a final hairy eyeball from him . . . complete with a grumble under _his_ breath . . . it was his just grumbling for grumbling sake grumble, she knew it well . . . he headed down the hall. She closed the door with another shake of her head. Her eyes crinkled.

"Total goofball."

* * *

_A/N 2: That hotel was too perfect. I didn't even make any of it up. I googled hotels in SF, it was the second one that showed up after The Hilton. And it really is mostly 'European' style rooms with the shared bathrooms. And my main experience with that concept (film'wise) is just from National Lampoon's European Vacation and I saw Emily (world traveler that she is) perhaps rolling with the punches a bit better on that point, whereas cranky tired Hotch would just be 'are you F'ing KIDDING me?!' Though, I'm with Hotch. A couple hundred bucks should at least rent you your own toilet._

_I'm not planning for this to go AU. As written, it's still tucked in the middle of Universe A. Just another night in their past that's referred to in the jumbled 'holidays and helping Hotch through his divorce' phase where the parameters of their personal/professional relationship get a little bit mixed up sometimes. _

_Next update, The Hours._

_Thanks everybody for all the reviews!_


	5. Knock, Knock Splat

**Author's Note**: This one's going longer than I'd initially envisioned, but, that happens.

Continuing from the scene break.

* * *

**Prompt Set #29 (March 2013)**

Author: Tanith Lee

Title Challenge: When the Lights Go Out

* * *

**Knock, Knock . . . Splat**

After Hotch left the room, Emily went over to pull back the covers on the bed. The desk clerk was right . . . she stepped back a bit to eyeball the dimensions . . . it was actually pretty big.

At least a queen size.

But still . . . she headed over to the closet to get down a spare pillow . . . even a queen was not quite big enough. Nothing was quite big enough when you were 'sleeping' with your boss/the really hot guy that you had a hot and heavy make-out with barely a month earlier.

Not that she had any intention of doing anything at all with Hotch that night, except steal half of his blankets.

But . . . she pulled down a spare pillow from the top shelf . . . a little 'wall of Jericho' would be perhaps be in order. Not that she didn't trust Hotch implicitly to be a total gentleman (that went without saying), it was really _herself_ that she was worried about.

Or specifically her _unconscious_ self.

She had a tendency to snuggle. Hell, even on the PLANE she was mauling him in her sleep! So hopefully if she could just put a small physical barrier between them, and then stay far, FAR over on her edge of the mattress . . . she shook her head as she walked back over and slipped the extra pillow down next to her side of the bed . . . all would be good.

Aka, she wouldn't completely humiliate herself.

So once she'd put her little divider down . . . she'd slip it in behind her after the lights were out . . . she went over to retrieve her gun and phone off the chair where she'd left them.

And after she'd placed those two items down on the nightstand, she finally climbed into the bed. Of course ten seconds after she'd put her head down on the pillow, there was a knock on the door.

Her eyes popped open.

Crap. She'd forgotten Hotch didn't take the key card.

So with a weary sigh, she shoved the blankets off, climbed back out of bed, and shuffled around to the door. She was just about to whip it open when her higher brain functioning kicked in . . . you don't ever whip open the door without checking to see who it was first, not if you don't want to 'get dead' . . . so she leaned up on her tiptoes to look through the peephole.

What she saw made her brow darken.

It wasn't Hotch . . . her eyes shot over to her gun on the other side of the bed . . . it was some other man. All she could make out was general build, general height . . . at least as tall as her . . . dark hair and a dark colored baseball cap.

She couldn't even make out race.

But that's because his sleeves were long . . . it might have been a windbreaker, hard to tell from the warped peephole view . . . and he was wearing gloves. And that right there made her stomach tighten.

It might have been the middle of winter, but it was winter in San Francisco . . . it wasn't that frigging cold.

_Certainly_ not cold enough to wear gloves inside.

And the gloves . . . in combination with the baseball cap . . . were worrisome enough to make Emily dive over the bed to snag her pistol off the nightstand.

And besides that though . . . she thought while sliding back across the mattress . . . there was no good reason that _anybody _at all should have been knocking on their door at one in the morning. It's not like you were going to borrow a cup of _sugar_ from your hotel neighbor! And if you had an emergency of some kind, you called the front desk, or you stood out in the hallway screaming.

You didn't go "quietly knocking" on the adjacent doors.

So with her gun now in hand, and her anxiety level now inching back up . . . she was no longer tired at all . . . Emily pushed herself up off the bed. As she came to her feet, the person knocked for a second time.

"Who is it?" She asked slowly, while leaning back against the wall next to the door.

The response to her question was muffled and unintelligible . . . and she didn't believe for a second that was accidental.

And for a second she stood there, gnawing her lip, debating her best course of action. Though she was armed . . . and Hotch was just down the hall, literally a scream away if one was uttered . . . she wasn't sure about pushing a confrontation with whoever this was.

Things could escalate so quickly.

And with Hotch, again, _just_ down the hall, he could walk out into something completely unawares. And that thought put a whole new worry into her head.

What if this person was still in the hallway when Hotch came out of the bathroom? He _was_ going to be caught completely unawares! He might have been armed, but it's not like he was wandering in a dark alley . . . he was not going to be at his most alert.

Nor would he have his gun out.

Okay . . . Emily snapped to attention . . . that meant that she needed to quickly deal with this person, whoever he was, right now and by herself. So she took a breath . . . slipped off her safety . . . and whipped the door open.

And . . . her eyes widened . . . nobody.

She took a cautious step out, her eyes darting back and forth down the hall. But still . . . she bit her lip . . . nobody. But then she spotted the Fire Exit not fifteen feet down the hall.

It wouldn't surprise her if Baseball Cap, was now hiding on the other side of _that_ door.

And whoever the jackass was . . . now she was just getting pissed off that she had to "chase" him . . . she didn't want him to get away before she'd scared the ever living shit out of him.

Even if he hadn't _technically_ done anything illegal, he'd definitely gotten on her bad side.

So rather than heading in the other direction to go get Hotch . . . no time . . . Emily started towards the bright red fire door.

She'd only taken three steps in that direction before she heard a creak from behind her . . . she spun around, gun up.

But then she immediately dropped her sites back to the ground.

Hotch.

"You startled me," she whispered with a little scowl.

Hotch froze, his eyes bouncing between Emily's gun . . . which had just been pointed at his center mass . . . . and their surroundings at large.

He immediately yanked his pistol out of his waistband.

_What the HELL was going on out here?!_

"What happened?" He hissed while quickly closing the few feet separating them.

And then he listened while Emily hurriedly, but calmly, brought him up to speed. And though he agreed that the guy was indeed worthy of running down . . . it sounded like some idiot casing their room . . . they were already almost an hour into their designated six hour break time.

And they STILL hadn't gotten to bed!

But regardless, Hotch knew that the only responsible thing to do was check and make sure the guy wasn't hanging around the floor. So after he'd dropped his bag in the doorway, they moved down the hall to check the stairwell.

And with Emily pressed against the wall . . . they did a silent count to three . . . and he kicked the door open.

Nobody.

They moved into the stairwell itself . . . him covering up, her covering down . . . and still, nobody. No sounds, no echoes . . . no stray candy bar wrappers.

If somebody had been there, he was gone.

So he gave Emily the signal, and they went back through to their floor. And for a moment Hotch stood there in the hallway, trying to determine . . . with his poor, sleep deprived brain . . . if they had done all that they should do.

Given that they had no proof that the man in the hallway was up to anything 'nefarious' . . . one am door knocking was admittedly suspicious, but it didn't necessarily make him an _UNSUB_ . . . Hotch decided that it was probably best to pack it in.

There really wasn't anything more they could do.

The most likely scenario for the knock on the door was a push in burglar, or maybe a rapist. But burglar was more likely because the guy would have no way of knowing of who was actually staying in any given room. Man, woman . . . couple with four kids. And the odds of a _pansexual_, equal opportunity rapist, having been standing in their hallway two minutes earlier, were fairly slim.

Though _that _actuallywould have been an UNSUB worthy of their attention.

But regardless of who he was, Hotch would have been happy to apprehend/shove his face through a wall . . . but the guy was gone.

Most likely, Emily had scared him off.

And though they had no grounds to call the SFPD and file a report . . . literally, it was just a knock on the door, they'd look ridiculous . . . as Hotch guided Emily back down the hall and into their room, he knew that at the least it would probably be prudent to call the front desk. The place was high end enough to have hotel security, they could handle it.

So after he'd kicked his shaving bag further into the room, Hotch locked the door . . . inadvertently bumping into his ready bag as he went by . . . and went over to pick up the phone by the bed.

He pressed zero.

And while he was listening to the line ring in his ear, his expression softened when he saw Emily had put down her gun on the bed, and was now picking up his shirt from where he'd just knocked it onto the floor.

It had been lying on top of his duffel.

Just as the desk clerk came on the line, she began folding the white cotton, holding it to her chest while she lined up the sleeves. And the image of her doing that . . . the sweet domesticity of it . . . made his stomach hurt.

Memories of Haley in better days.

So he let his gaze fall to the carpet as he reminded the clerk who she had just checked into Room 417 . . . the FBI . . . and then he told her what had happened, and what he suggested her hotel do about it.

And fortunately, for his oh so tired brain . . . a brain that wanted _desperately_ to "responsibly" kick this one off to somebody else . . . the clerk confirmed that they did _indeed_ have a security staff. And she quickly conferenced him into the supervisor with an introduction as to who he was.

It took only thirty seconds for Hotch to learn that there were three guards on the overnight shift. One in the control room monitoring the cameras . . . the man Hotch was talking to . . . and two that did periodic sweeps through the hotel itself.

Hotch suggested that they review the hallway feed from their floor, and then . . . with the two guards going together, he stressed that point . . . that they do a walk through the entire hotel, paying particular attention to the stairwells, bathrooms, maintenance closets, and the common areas.

Any place somebody could hide.

The last thing he told them was that if they ran into any problems, i.e., the guy came after them with a meat cleaver, they could call them for assistance. But if they just caught him loitering, to call the police and let them handle it.

After the guard said "understood sir," for the fifteenth time . . . Hotch wouldn't have been surprised if he'd actually saluted him through the line . . . Hotch hung up the phone.

His gaze immediately caught with Emily's as he looked back up. She gave him a sleepy smile.

"I checked the closet and under the bed. The windows are locked, and the deadbolt is on. I think we're good."

He nodded while trying to bite back a yawn.

"Yeah, I think so too. And the security supervisor sounded competent enough, so I think they can handle the rest of it."

Security was their _job _after all, so he was presuming that the supervisor, at least, had had some genuine on security training. And honestly, even if those men they were no better trained than neighborhood block captains, all they really had to do was dial 911 if they saw something, or someone, suspicious.

Any idiot with a phone could do that.

And in the meantime . . . Hotch muffled another yawn . . . given that he and Emily were both armed and locked inside their little room, he was _more_ than willing to now try and give that sleep thing a shot.

And as he gestured towards the bed, he saw Emily's lip quirk up right before she walked over to climb in.

"I promise I will try to stay on my own side," she said a second later, while pulling the blankets up to her chest, "but fair warning, I do tend to gravitate towards a warm body."

That was about the most professional description she could give for "I tend to cuddle." Though as she saw Hotch both nod and shake his head at the same time . . . pretty impressive feat . . . she realized that he probably had figured that one out already.

Again, she had mauled him on the plane.

So he said nothing more than a dry, "understood," as he flipped of the lights. She felt the mattress shift. And then . . . she was lying in bed with Hotch.

On Valentine's Day.

Night.

She was spending Valentine's _night_ in bed with her boss. And though of course she'd known since they'd arrived at the hotel that was going to be the plan, suddenly the REALITY of it stuck her as so very weird! Weird enough actually that she felt like she should say something, but she couldn't think of anything to say. Calling attention to the holiday itself just seemed like a colossal briar patch. After all, he was . . . technically . . . still married.

And if their positions were reversed, and _she _was on the verge of divorce . . . which Hotch most definitely was . . . she wouldn't want anybody rubbing something like that in her face. So she decided to just try and get to sleep before she said (or did) anything to increase the awkward.

And to that end . . . keeping herself to herself . . . Emily rolled onto her side, facing away from Hotch and towards the far wall. Then she slid her little pillow up and slipped it through her legs before her eyes fell shut.

A few seconds later, she heard in the dark.

"Just so you know," Hotch whispered, "I also might have a tendency to gravitate towards a warm body."

Her eyes crinkled.

"Understood, sir." She responded with a faint huff.

And with that, the faint awkwardness was drained from the moment. So she turned back over to look at him in profile.

Her eyes were adjusting to the semi-dark . . . there was a bit of the usual bright city light coming in around the curtains . . . so she could see that he was staring up at the ceiling.

She reached out to touch his shoulder. And when his eyes snapped over to hers, she gave him a soft smile.

Hopefully he could see it.

"Given our potential gravitational issues, how about we agree now that if we wake up in any position beyond the one that we'll be falling asleep in, that we just," she waved her hand, "let it go. No big deal. No awkward. Okay?"

Hotch stared at her for a second, his teeth sinking into his lip . . . and then he nodded.

"Okay."

And with that, Emily sighed in relief. Then she turned back over on her side, and closed her eyes again.

_And NOW she could get some sleep!_

/*/*/*/*

Hotch's eyes popped open onto the darkened ceiling . . . something had just woken him up. But he didn't know what it was.

And then he heard a sound. He was presuming it was the same one that he'd heard the first time. This time though he could make it out.

It was a moan . . . his eyebrow inched up in alarm.

One of pain.

"Prentiss," his arm shot up to click on the lamp next to him, before he rolled over the other way to see what was wrong with her, "are you all right?"

But to his surprise . . . she wasn't on his other side. And then he saw her hand smack down on the mattress, just before her head poked up. She was blinking from the light and her hair was a bit mussed.

And she was holding her nose.

"I fell off the damn BED," she half moaned, half whined in a nasal voice, "and I landed on my _nose_!"

Her sentence ended with a pout and another moan. And Hotch immediately scrambled over to help her up.

"Oh Prentiss," he murmured as his eyes took in the drips of blood coming out of her closed palm, "how," he leaned over to pull her up off the floor, "do these things happen to you?"

If he wasn't there to see it for himself, he wouldn't have believed it was possible. The woman actually was the GREATEST klutz on the planet. She'd busted her nose . . . in her sleep.

That had to be a first.

Now back up on the bed, on her knees, Emily found herself half in Hotch's lap. But before she could begin to try to give him any personal space . . . though there really wasn't much to give, shear drop behind her and all . . . he was pushing her hand off her nose, and replacing it with his own.

He'd stuffed a wadded up clump of tissues into it.

"Tip your head back," he whispered as his other hand moved to her side, trying to steady her, "but not too far, or you'll fall off the bed again."

If he'd been talking to anybody else, that comment would have been an attempt at levity to lighten the mood. With her, it was a genuine advisory.

"Thanks," Emily gurgled back, while her clean hand (the not bloody one, that one was a bit sore from how'd fallen) grasped onto the arm that was holding her in place.

It might have seemed like overkill to hold onto him, if HE was already holding on to her, but if she could have strapped herself into a seatbelt right then, she would have. She'd just fallen off the freaking BED! WHO does that?! Who over the age of THREE does that?!

And how did _SHE_ do that?!

Well, most likely it was because she'd been SO afraid of accidentally rubber gluing herself to Hotch in her sleep . . . if it had happened it totally would have been her fault and she knew it . . . that she'd fallen asleep teetered right on the outer edge of the mattress. All had been fine and dandy when she'd drifted off to sleep. But then at some point . . . splat.

Face plant.

And really, that was a WAY more embarrassing way to wake up your bedmate than with a simple (relatively harmless) snuggle. This was just IDIOCY at its finest! And she was waiting for Hotch to make some comment, something dry or cutting like he did when he was pissed off. Or even for him to just express some general 'dissatisfaction' at being woken up in the middle of the night by a crazy person who couldn't 'work' a freaking mattress. Any and all commentary from him would have been totally understandable, and she would have taken it without a word in response . . . but he didn't do anything like that.

He wasn't cranky at all.

He was just soft and sweet . . . though a bit sleepy . . . as he fussed over her and her bloody nose. It was making her feel better.

Less embarrassed at least.

And then he asked her if she hurt anywhere else. To that she half shrugged (which hurt her neck) before sucking in a breath and panting back, "just bent my wrist a bit." She was trying to seem nonchalant and cool while the man blocked off half of her respiratory intake.

It wasn't easy.

But fortunately that was the point where he took the tissues down. It had been at least two minutes, and it hadn't been a full on gusher. Just a light trickle. And the light trickles usually clotted pretty quickly.

Unfortunately she was a bit of an expert on this point.

And so when Hotch held the bloodied tissues away from face, and told her to tip her head forward, she felt pretty good about the results. And as expected . . . no more blood.

Then she felt his warm fingertips pressing into his chin.

He tipped her head one way, and then the other, eyeing her closely.

"I guess it's okay," he murmured, "not broken anyway. But we should ice it. If you fell flat on your face, with the height of the bed, that's a good two foot drop."

His gaze dropped down.

"And you said you hurt your wrist too," his hand dropped down to pick up the arm she was holding gingerly against her stomach.

Again, it was the one with the bloody fingers.

"No, Hotch," she tried to pull it back, "really, it's okay. I'll live."

Now she was getting kind of embarrassed again . . . but then Hotch's eyebrow rose up.

"_I'll _be the judge of that," he stated drily.

And the embarrassment . . . she huffed to herself . . . was again removed.

Hotch did have a gift in putting her at ease.

Seeing Emily's lips twitch as she finally stopped fighting him checking her injury, Hotch dropped his attention back down to the cramped limb. He carefully extended it out to rest the back of her forearm against his leg. Then he gently ran his fingertips along her wrist, feeling for any swelling.

Given that it was her 'shooting hand,' swelling would not be good.

Actually, considering that it was just the two of them alone working the case in San Francisco, swelling would be _quite_ bad.

But fortunately . . . he folded her arm back so it was resting on her leg again . . . it didn't seem too banged up. Better than her nose anyway.

Still though, as he turned to climb off the bed, he knew that just like _with_ her nose, ice would be the best approach to keeping all of her parts in normal 'working order' size. They really couldn't afford to wake up tomorrow with her only able to shoot lefty.

She'd take somebody's eye out.

As Emily saw Hotch pick up his gun and head for the door, her eyebrow rose up.

"Where are you going? It's," her eyes darted over to the bedside clock, "after three."

"Like I said," he pointed to her wrist, and then her nose, "you need some ice."

"Oh, okay, but wait for me," she started scuttling forward on her knees, her arm still pressed to her stomach, "I need to wash my hand, and," she rolled her eyes, "I'm sure my face is a bit of a mess."

Given that she'd had blood running down it, that was pretty much a given.

Hotch stared down for a moment, trying to think of any logical counterpoints to Emily's statements . . . there weren't any. After all, he couldn't wash her hands and face, _for_ her.

Clearly she had to go with him.

So he put his hand out help her off the bed . . . she was still on her knees.

"Okay," he slipped her fingers into his, "come on."

Then he snatched the key card off the nightstand, and opened the door.

If they were both going out . . . even if it was just for a minute . . . obviously he was going to lock up. Random, pain in the ass, door knocker was probably still on the loose somewhere.

So once he'd tucked his gun into the waistband of his pants, and waved off Emily when she said she had to turn back and get hers . . . they were leaving for three minutes to go ten feet down the hall, in either direction, it would be fine . . . he handed her the key card, which she promptly tucked into her cleavage.

He stared at her for a second before huffing.

"That's one place to put it. Now," he opened the door, "come on, let's go clean up."

Once they were out in the corridor, Hotch quietly closed the door again. And after he'd made sure that the casters had clicked in place . . . yes . . . he jiggled the handle.

Locked.

Good.

So he put his arm up and started guiding Emily ahead of him. Three seconds later she was knocking on the closed bathroom door . . . no response . . . so she turned the knob and tentatively pushed it open with the tips of her fingers. She poked her head around the corner.

Empty.

So she stepped inside . . . and after a second's hesitation . . . Hotch squeezed in after her.

All he wanted to do was go back to bed, and obviously . . . he bit back a sigh . . . it would be much faster to just clean up together. So while she turned on the hot water, (lamenting that her nose was already looking a bit off kilter), he reached up to pull down a few of the high end paper towels they had stacked on the shelf.

They almost felt like real cloth, so they were really thick and absorbent. And he quickly wet one, and pumped some of the lavender hand soap onto it. Then he scrunched it together to make a bit of suds.

And while Emily was washing the blood off her hand, he reached over to wipe off her face. If she thought that was strange, she didn't say anything. But then he remembered that it wasn't the first time that they'd had a late night injury to address. And with that realization, for a just second, he flashed on the last time they were in a bathroom and he was cleaning her up.

They'd ended up almost having sex.

But that was a very different night . . . and he was in a very place then.

Virginia to be exact.

The joke wasn't funny, but still he found himself huffing slightly. Anything to fight off the madness.

And once he'd scrubbed the tacky spots of crimson from Emily's pale skin . . . she didn't even blink while he did it, she just lifted her chin so he could get the underside . . . he tossed the paper towel into the trash.

And that's when their usual synchronicity went slightly out of sync.

The exact moment he moved to put his own hand under the faucet . . . it was also a bit sticky with blood, and now soap suds . . . she moved to splash some water on her face. And he ended up bumping her hands, which were cupped together with nice clean H2O.

She spilled it all over her chest . . . or more precisely . . . he KNOCKED it all over her chest.

And while muttering an apology, Hotch . . . by a combination of habit and sleep deprivation . . . also grabbed a dry paper towel and went to clean up the mess he'd made. Not the mess on the counter, the mess on her.

He caught himself just in time.

It was the now transparent, water logged, nipples that reminded him . . . that was a no touching zone. And fortunately Emily was too distracted leaning forward to squeeze out her shirt, to notice that he'd almost copped a MAJOR feel!

Of course it would have been the second one he'd had in a month. And the first had completely been with her permission. But somehow . . . he tried to fight off the faint flush he could feel creeping up his face . . . he didn't think that would make it "okay." So while she did her best to dry off, he kept his hands well to himself.

And once they were both once more as clean . . . and as dry . . . as they could get, and he'd apologized yet again . . . she shot him a sheepish smile, and a "no worries" . . . he opened the door.

Though they were stepping out of the bathroom only a few minutes after they'd gone in, to Hotch's surprise there was an old woman standing out in the hall.

Clearly she was waiting to use the 'facilities.'

But before she did that, she took one long look at Emily with her wet, skin tight tank top sticking to her breasts . . . nipples were on display . . . and him with his hand on her back, before she scowled.

"Sickies," she muttered with a shake of her head, "if you're going to do that filth, do it in your own room."

And then . . . before either of them could say anything . . . she'd pushed by them and into the little bathroom. The door clicked shut . . . and Emily burst out laughing.

Then she quickly slapped her hand over her mouth.

She didn't want to wake anybody up.

And when her gaze shifted over to get Hotch's reaction. She saw that he was giving . . . apparently the universe, he was looking up . . . a weary sigh, and an eye roll.

Just as she went to open her mouth, he put up his hand.

"Let's just get the ice, and go back to bed."

She nodded.

"Right."

Yeah, sometimes with Hotch, it was best to pretend like the thing that had just happened, didn't happen at all. And so she turned with him and continued in the opposite direction past their hotel room.

Though Hotch did reach out to jiggle their handle as they walked by.

Yep . . . she nodded . . . still locked.

A second later, they came upon the little side room . . . it was an open space, no door . . . with the ice machine. After Hotch filled up a small bucket . . . and she'd taken one of the complimentary Andes Mints for each of them because, hey, chocolate . . . they headed back down to their room again.

They were chewing their mints as they walked down the hall.

And once they were inside . . . it only took her one swipe with the card, yay . . . Hotch redid the deadbolt, and she again checked the windows, in the closet and under the bed. And they did those things because they were just those kinds of people.

Paranoid as fuck.

But unlike most paranoids, they actually had concrete reasons for the actions that they took. Aside from the unknown weirdo in the hallway, there wasn't one person on their team who hadn't caught the_ personal_ attention of any number of really, REALLY horrible people over the years. In a perverse way, it was almost something to be proud of.

If you were doing your job right, they wanted you dead.

And as such, it did make you SUPER vigilant about checking the locks . . . and the clips in your gun.

But the locks were done and her gun was loaded, so as Hotch went about making up two small ice packs for her . . . he said a clean sock would work quite nicely for each, and that he always carried a spare pair . . . she went over to her bag to pull out another sleep shirt.

Hers was cold and wet.

But fortunately it was only her first day of changing clothes, so her bag was still basically full of clean stuff. She yanked a black tank top from the bottom of the short stack of shirts she had on the side. And then she called over her shoulder.

"Could you face the door for a second, please? I just want to switch shirts."

For a second Hotch had no idea what Emily was talking about, but then he realized that four minutes was not enough time for her tank top to have dried out. So he turned around as she asked.

"All set." He called back, while staring at a scratch on the painted white door.

A moment later Emily muttered, a "k," and he turned back around to see that she'd traded tight pink, for tight black.

Better.

Well . . . he went back to his jerry rigged ice packs . . . better for him anyway. Less nipple definition, meant less distractions re said nipples. Which was all the better . . . he tied off the second sock . . . for his sleep cycle.

Seeing that Hotch looked about done with the ice . . . he was dropping the cover back on the bucket . . . Emily crossed over to where he was leaning over the dresser.

"All set?" she asked, half on a yawn.

"Yeah," he turned to her with one sock in hand, "wrist please."

Emily raised her arm up, and Hotch proceeded to wrap the ice filled . . . stretched out . . . sock around her wrist.

"Pretty slick," she said with a little smile, watching him tie the ends together, "another boy scout trick?"

"As a matter of fact," Hotch tipped his head, "yes." And then he turned to pick up the other ice sock from the dresser.

That one was already tied up.

"This one," he dropped it into her open palm, "just hold it to your nose for as long as you can." Then his gaze shifted up to her face and his brow wrinkled slightly in concern.

"Hmm, it really is starting to puff up," his fingers brushed over her jaw to tip her head back slightly, "I guess we didn't get the ice on quickly enough. Damn. Well," his arm fell back to his side, "I'd suggest you try to stay awake for at least another ten minutes to keep the ice pack on there. Otherwise it might be even worse in the morning."

"K, thanks," Emily murmured, her eyes falling to the carpet as she brought the sock up to her nose. And she was just about to walk around Hotch to go climb into bed, when he put his hand on her arm.

"Are you all right?" He asked softly.

Suddenly she seemed a bit sad, and it always bothered him to see her sad. It was a visceral response that he didn't quite understand.

It made his chest tight.

"Yeah," Emily nodded slowly, her gaze shifting back up right before her lower lip popped out. "I'm just _really_ tired, and I want to go to sleep. But now I can't go to sleep because if I do then I'm probably going to wake up looking like Mike Tyson punched me in the face." She pouted just as her voice caught. "You might as well just get me a bag to wear tomorrow."

_She was way too overtired to be dealing with this crap. _

Hotch's brow darkened . . . and then he reached out to cup her jaw. He held it still, just staring at her for a moment. Long enough for Emily to drop the ice pack down as she wondered what exactly was going on.

This was not standard behavior for him.

"What is it?" She asked in confusion, unsure of what exactly he was finding so fascinating about her busted up face.

But then suddenly his expression softened . . . and he leaned down . . . and he kissed her. It was just for a few seconds, long enough for her eyes to fall shut . . . but not so long that there was any labored breathing. Basically it was just soft . . . and sweet.

Really sweet.

And when he pulled away, he gave her wistful smile.

"Emily Prentiss, the one thing that you will _never_ need in this life," he whispered as his thumb brushed along her cheek, "is a paper bag to wear over your head. You got it?"

Though it was not his habit . . . or at least not an _everyday_ habit . . . to go around kissing Emily, in this instance he couldn't stop himself.

It was a bit of a biological imperative.

She'd just looked and sounded so miserable. And the thought of her believing, and there was no doubt in his mind that she truly believed it, that she ever could be 'shunned' by society for her _looks_, was absolutely ludicrous.

The kiss was the one way he thought that he could drive that point home.

Emily's eyes started to burn.

_God, he was so freaking sweet! He was seriously going to make her cry._

But figuring she'd made enough of a spectacle of herself that night without _actual_ blubbering, she just quickly nodded as she tried to blink away the hot tears.

"Yeah," she shot him a watery smile, "I got it. Thank you."

His eyes crinkled.

"No problem. Now," he huffed out a breath, "put that ice back on your face." He tipped his head.

"And let's go to bed."

* * *

_A/N 2: Given that Girl'canon has already covered straight 'waking up in the middle of the night accidental cuddling,' to keep it fresh, this one had to go down a totally different route. And Emily, trying to be good and not maul Hotch in her sleep, accidentally overcompensating and falling off the bed, amused me. Basically I was in the mood to write some of their 30s screwball comedy stuff, in the midst of a not at all funny case. I might have a problem._

_Also, I've had a crappy week, and I felt like writing some kissing, so there you go. The secret behind the big 'plot points' :)_

_Thanks for the feedback everybody!_


End file.
